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EEMII^ISOENCES 



OF 



EUROPEAN TRAVEL 



BY ,/^ 



ANDREW P. PEABODY. 










JUL 



BOSTON AND NEW yORKf- " 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 

1896. 



T) 






THE LIBRARY 
or CONGRESS 

WASHINGTON 



^ 



popyright, 1SG8 and 189G, 
By ANDREW P. PEABODY and MARY R. PEABODY. 

All rights reserved. 



PREFACE. 



The author was invited, last winter, to deliver 
twelve Lectures on what he saw in Europe, before 
the Lowell Institute. The chapters of this book are 
those Lectures, with hardly a verbal change, except 
the occasional substitution of readers for hearers. 
The author has not thought it necessary to interpo- 
late or add a narrative of those portions of his tour 
not embraced in the Lectures ; for his way seldom 
diverged from the wonted highway of travel, about 
which enough has been written. 

One word more. The Lectures were, for the 
most part, transcribed from letters written to the 
author's own family, without the remotest reference 
to publication either by voice or through the press. 
Li many instances, in which his taste might have 
dictated a change, he has preserved the very words 
of his letters, in the belief that the form in which 



iv PREFACE. 

one describes new scenes and experiences while his 
impressions are still fresh and vivid, can only become 
less graphic by the attempt to improve it. 

Haevard UmvERSiTY, Jum 5, 1868. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

OLD ENGLAND. 



/ 



First Impressions of England. — Chester. — Tokens of Antiquity. 
— Sherwood Forest. — Haddon Hall. — Fountains Abbey. — 
Boston. — Houses of Parliament. — Dinner Speaking. — Lord 
Brougham. — The English Pulpit. — Spurgeon. — Newman 
Hall. — Martineau 



CHAPTER n. 

LONDON. 

Municipal Organization. — Climate. — Police. — Literary Associa- 
tions. — Parks. — Contrasts. — The Bank. — The Royal Ex- 
change. — The Thames. — The Tunnel. -- The Tower. — 
Westmmster Abbey. — St. Paul's. — The British Museum. 

— The South Kensington Museum 25 

CHAPTER HI. 

SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 

Scottish Lakes. — Highland Scenery. — Ben Nevis. — Killamey. 

— The Jaunting-car. — The Gap of Dunloe. — The Irish 
Lakes. — Mendicancy. — The English Lakes. — Memorials of 
Wordsworth. — Sheffield. — Manufactures of Iron and Steel. 

— Edinburgh. — Old and New City. — Scott's Monument. — 
Dublin. — St. Patrick's 50 



vi CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

AKT. 

Superiority of Ancient and Mediaeval Art. — The Ministry of Art. 

— The Sistine Madonna. — Other Pictures at Dresden. — 
Titian's Assumption of the Virgin. — Raphael's Transfigura- 
tion. — Rubens' Pictures. — Wood-carving. — Pulpit at Brus- 
sels. —The Dying Gladiator. — Michael Angelo's Moses. — 
The Milan Cathedral. — Goldsmith's Work. — Reasons for the 
Decline of Art 76 

CHAPTER V. 

SWITZEKLAND. 

Swiss Roads. — Inns. — People. — Basle. — Lucerne. — The Rigi. 

— Lake Lucerne. — Pass of St. Gotthard. — The Furca. — 
Glacier of the Rhone. — The Grimsel Pass. — Lake of Brienz. 

— Falls of the Giessbach. — Interlachen. — The Jungfrau. — 
Swiss Music. — Bern. — Geneva. — Lake of Geneva. — Lau- 
sanne. — Baths of Saxon. — Ruins ..... 100 

CHAPTER VI. 

CHAMOUNY AND NORTHERN ITALY. 

Routes to Chamouny. — The Valley. —The Fl^gere. — The Mon- 
tanvert. — The Mer de Glace. — The Glacier des Bossons. — 
Sunrise at Chamouny. — The Simplon. — First Views of Italy. '" 

— Domo d'Ossola. — Lake Maggiore. — Lake Lugano. — Lu- 
gano. — Lake of Como. — Como. — Market-scene. — Milan. — 
The Last Supper. — Church of St. Ambrose. — Golden Altar. 

— Ambrosian Library 124 

CHAPTER VII. 

PARIS. 

Manysidedness of Paris. — Its Exterior. — Industry. — Manufac- 
tures. — Holidays. — Charities. — Education. — Paternal Gov- 
ernment. — The Boulevards. — The Madeleine — The Pan- 
theon. — Notre Dame. — Chapelle Expiatoire. — Chapel of St. 
Ferdinand. — Pere la Chaise. — Tomb of Napoleon. — The 
Louvre. — Jardin des Plantes. — Jardin d'Acclimatation . . 148 



CONTENTS. VU 

CHAPTER VIII. 

NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

Naples. — Views. — People. — Modes of Living. — Vesuvius. — 
The Solfatara. — Monte Nuovo.— Lake of Agnano. — Stufa 
di Nerone. — Virgilian Sites. — Avernus. — The Acherusia 
Palus. — The Elysian Fields. — Cave of the Cumsean SibyL — 
Road to Sorrento. — Sorrento. — The Blue Grotto. — Capri. 

— Palace of Tiberius. — Road to Amalfi. — Amalfi. — Salerno. 

— Peasants' Costume. — Present Condition of Italy. — Prot- 
estantism in Naples and Florence 1"^^ 

CHAPTER IX. 

POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

Destruction of Pompeii.— Its Streets, Shops, Houses, and Temples. 

— National Museum at Naples. — Unrolling of Manuscripts. 

— Relics of the Buried Cities. — Pompeii a Commentary on 
the Classics.— Pisa. — The Cathedral. — The Baptistery.— 
The Leaning Tower.— The Campo Santo. — Perugia. — The 
Staffa Madonna. — Pietro Perugino. — Bologna. — Raphael's 
St. Cecilia. — Guide's Madonna della Pieta. — The Campo 
Santo . • 



201 



CHAPTER X. 

ANCIENT ROME. 

First Impressions. — The Seven Hills. — The Capitol. — The Fo- 
rum Romanum. — Trajan's Forum and Column. — Baths of 
Caracalla. — The Colosseum. — The Pantheon. — Aqueducts. 
— The Tarpeian Rock. — The Mamertine Prison. — The Clo- 
aca Maxima. — Ancient Sculpture. — Inscriptions. — Church 
of St. Clement. — The Catacombs.— Hadrian's Villa. — Ti- 
voli. — The Campagna. —The Tiber. — Vestiges of the ancient 
Roman Race. — Saturnalia on the Eve of the Epiphany 

CHAPTER XI. 

MODERN ROME. 

St. Peter's. — The Vatican. — Sistine Chapel. — The Last Judg- 
ment. — Raphael's Creation. — Etruscan Museum. — Hall of 



229 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

Maps. — Vatican Library. — Manufacture of Mosaics. — Christ- 
mas at St. Peter's. — The Cardinals. — The Pope. — Christ- 
mas at the Ara Coeli. — Scala Santa. — Church of St. Stephen. 

— Vault of the Capuchins. — Monks in Rome. — State of the 
City. — Palaces. — Artists. — Houses of the Poor. — Beggars. 

— Chestnut Venders.— Bad Police. — Fox-hunt. — Protestant 
Cemetery. — Falls of Terni 258 

CHAPTER XII. 

GERMANY. 

Nuremberg. —Aspect of Antiquity. — Fountains and Markets. — 
Instruments of Torture. — Old Curiosity Shop. — Honor to 
Distinguished Natives. — Prague. — Hymns to the Virgin. 

— Cathedral of St. Vitus. — The Judenstadt. — Old Syna- 
gogue. — Church-customs. — Heidelberg. — Castle. —Fair. — 
Market. — Baden-Baden. — Castles, Old and New. — High 
Play. — Hot Springs. — Freiberg. — School of Mines. — Prac- 
tical Mining , , 28a 



REMINISCENCES 



OF 



EUROPEAN TRAVEL. 



CHAPTER I. 

OLD ENGLAND. 

First Impressions of England. — Chester. — Tokens of Antiquity. — 
Sherwood Forest. — Haddon Hall. — Fountains Abbey. — Boston. — 
Houses of Parliament. — Dinner Speaking. — Lord Brougham. — 
The English Pulpit. — Spurgeon. — Newman Hall. — Martineau. 

Heaven's richest boon to a traveller is the presen- 
tific power of memory. Mere recollection would 
give us little pleasure or profit, nay, might awaken 
a comfortless yearning for what we had once seen, 
or a life-long regret that the beautiful visions could 
never be repeated. It would be worse than unsat- 
isfying to recall places, names, and the mere details 
of an itinerary. But what we have once beheld is 
thenceforth ours. In a profounder sense than the 
poet meant, 

" A thing of beauty is a joy forever." 

We admire, and cannot admire to excess, the php- 
1 



2 OLD ENGLAND. 

tographic art in its various modes of presentation. 
It is an unspeakable privilege to bring together on 
our tables scenes from every land, sun-pictures, too, 
of world-renowned master-works, and to make our 
tour in every zone and clime by shifting the slides 
in the stereoscope. But how immeasurably more 
precious is the gallery of photographs, taken on the 
retina of our own vision, deposited where they 
never grow dim, stored away in countless numbers, 
as vivid by night as by day, found at the very mo- 
ment we seek them, the slide shifting as rapidly as 
the thought, — photographs, too, not with the mere 
lights and shadows, but polychromatic, retaining 
every hue of the sunset clouds, every delicate tint 
of the painter's brush, every bright color of the 
peasant's costume ! I propose to describe in part a 
series of these photographs taken during a European 
tour, in the years 1866 and 1867. 

It is fitting that I should begin with England, 
both as our mother country, and as the land in 
which almost every American obtains his first for- 
eign experiences. Old England we learn at once 
to say with intense emphasis ; New England ac- 
quires a fulness of meaning which it never had be- 
fore, and the two centuries and a half of our history 
no longer carry us back to an appreciable antiquity. 

The steamers that ply between the two countries 
have arrangements specially adapted to produce this 
impression of contrast. The American embarks at 
Boston or New York on Wednesday, and in the 
ordinary course of navigation, reaches Liverpool on 



CHESTER. 3 

Saturday morning of the following week. Liver- 
pool seems to him like New York without an Astor, 
St. Nicholas, or Fifth Avenue, — a vast wilderness 
of docks, shops, and warehouses, opulent, crowded, 
tumultuous, with some magnificent edifices, and 
some quiet and homelike streets, but without an inn 
that looks either restful or attractive. London is 
too remote for a Saturday's journey, and one who 
would economize his time prefers approaching the 
metropolis by stages that will enable him to visit 
various intermediate points of essential interest, 
without retracing his steps. Chester, within half 
an hour by railway, is, therefore, chosen for Sun- 
day's repose ; and there the traveller finds himself 
transplanted into the Middle Ages, with not a few 
memorials of an antiquity to which they are modern. 
Chester, a corruption of Castra, (a camp,) was a 
E,oman military station from the time of Julius 
Caesar until the Romans left the island. The wall, 
which entirely surrounds the old city, and is broad 
enough for a promenade, was commenced under 
their auspices, and completed nearly a thousand 
years ago. The prmcipal streets are distinguished 
by a style of architecture which some antiquaries 
refer to a Roman origin, and which undoubtedly 
belongs to a period prior to any continuous history 
of Great Britain. The sidewalks rest upon the 
basements, and are roofed by the second stories of 
the houses. The covered ways thus formed are 
lined with shops of every description, under, be- 
hind, and above which are the dwellin2;-houses, each 



4 OLD ENGLAND. 

upper story projecting over the one next lower, — 
so that occupants of the fourth floor on opposite 
sides of the street are brought into a proximity 
which must make them either strong friends or 
very bitter enemies. From these streets lead all 
manner of narrow lanes and alleys, through the 
oddest places, among queer, antique houses, shops, 
and inns, glazed with miniature diamond-shaped 
panes in leaden sashes. There are no two build- 
ings alike, and hardly one which does not look as 
if it had a history ; while several of the taverns 
carry us back at least three centuries, and can 
hardly have been new even then. 

The Cathedral befits the city. It is partly in 
ruins ; the whole exterior wall is in slow decay ; 
and huge, ancient trees grow where some of the 
cloisters of the once adjacent abbey stood, and over 
vaults and crypts still occupied and frequented. 
Here may be found mosaic altar-pieces, and pave- 
ments, and painted glass, with figures indicating 
an age prior to the use of perspective in grouping ; 
while the grim forms of knights and churchmen 
and dames of high degree, in gray stone, look down 
from the walls, or lie in rudely ambitious sculpture 
on the floor. 
/ 1 Age and the consciousness of it form the most 
/ prominent characteristic of England and of the 
English people, and are the prime source of all 
their idiosyncrasies. No token of antiquity that 
can be preserved is obliterated. Restoration is 
preferred to renovation. An old buildino- is no* 



LOVE OF ANTIQUITY. 5 

disused so long as it admits of occupancy ; nor is a 
dilapidated member of a building removed simply 
because it is untenantable. The Church of St. 
John the Baptist, in Chester, built in the tenth 
century, and now in fiill use for a large congrega- 
tion, has, lying behind the chancel, the ruins of the 
lady-chapel, which was crushed by the fall of the 
tower several centuries ago, and the tower that 
succeeded the one that fell has long been a ruin. 
An Englishman has no reverence for modern archi- 
tecture. In London, the buildings erected imme- 
diately after the Great Fire are the latest in which 
the citizens take pride, and these are new compared 
with the cathedrals, colleges, castles, and manor- 
houses that are the glory of the land. 

The manners and habits of the people have their 
roots " in the time whereof the memory of man run- 
neth not to the contrary." Table etiquette re- 
tains, for the most part, the statehness and for- 
malism of earlier days. In dress and furniture, 
glaring colors and showy fashions are an infallible 
sign of vulgar breeding, abjured by all who have, 
or pretend to have, ancestors. Precedent is imper- 
ative law, and the only way to dislodge a precedent 
that has become obsolete, is to conjure up the simil- 
itude of one still older. Steam, elsewhere revolu- 
tionary, here innovates but slowly, even in the de- 
partments that lie most open to its influence. Not 
only the rural inns, but those at important railway 
stations and in large provincial towns, and even 



6 OLD ENGLAND. 

many in London, retain the staff, appointments, and 
customs, made familiar to us by the hterature of 
Queen Anne's reign ; and the table d'hote dinner, 
universal on the Continent and very common in 
Scotland and Ireland, has been introduced, so far as 
I know, into but one English hotel. 

Above all, England manifests everywhere the 
accumulated opulence of an age of many centuries. 
Solidity and massiveness, regardless of cost, charac- 
terize constructions of every kind, — roads, bridges, 
railways, fences, public edifices, private dwellings. 
There are no makeshifts, no lath and plaster build- 
ings, no cheap ornamentation, no imitation of mould- 
ings and cornices in limewash, no mockery of 
precious woods in paltry pine. Wealth is not 
ostentatiously displayed ; but it is stowed |iway in 
masses that constantly protrude into sight, and im- 
press the fresh beholder with perpetual amazement. 
England may have reached and passed her climac- 
teric : but if so, her decline must be slow and long ; 
for her hoarded resources may sustain her national 
strength for many generations. 

Even the forms of vegetation that constantly 
meet the eye in England sustain the prestige of 
venerable age. Yews through whose decayed trunks 
a coach and six may be driven without collision on 
either side ; hedges of thick-set trees, once shrubs ; 
ivy with stalks as large as a man's body ; parterres 
of flowering moss and yellow house-leeks springing 
luxuriantly from the roofs of old farm-houses and 



HADDON HALL. 7 

barns ; single grape-vines whose fruit is reckoned 
by the ton ; avenues of box that screen a tall man 
from the sun or shelter him from the sudden 
shower, — these and many hke objects conspire to 
sustain the feeling that we are in an older world 
than our birth-world. 

I spent a day in Sherwood Forest, where there 
is not a tree that might not have been a shelter for 
Kobin Hood and his merry men. The very oak 
on which he used to hang his venison is pointed 
out. I dined under another oak beneath which 
I fancied he must have often dined, and in whose 
shade fifty men might hold high festival. Ex- 
cept those destroyed by lightning, not a tree has 
been taken from this forest for four or five centu- 
ries, nor has one been added to it. No under- 
growth is suffered, except a tall and beautiful fern. 
The trees are wreathed into all manner of fantas- 
tic shapes, gnarled and knotted, bulging out with 
huge excrescences, many of them with hollows in 
which children might play hide-and-seek, and yet 
with foliage as rich and full as in tlieir prime. 

Of ancient houses, the most remarkable in the 
kingdom is Haddon Hall, belonging to the Duke 
of Rutland, for a century and a half occupied 
only by its custodians, kept in perfect repair, and 
wholly unaltered from the time when it harbored 
full seven score of servants, and kept incessant 
revel with open doors from Christmas to Twelfth- 
night. It differs fi^om a Pompeian house in having 



8 OLD ENGLAND. 

been preserved without being buried. There re- 
mains the kitchen, almost as large as the parish 
church, with two fire-places, in either of which an 
ox might be roasted whole ; adjacent to it is the 
bakery, with immense ovens, the very thought of 
filling which, makes one feel poverty-stricken ; and 
this opens into the butchery, with its murderous 
apparatus, and the meat-block for cutting up the 
slain beasts. On the other side of the rude, stone- 
floored hall is the great dining-room, with the dais 
at the upper end where the master of the house 
sat with his more distinguished guests. Still chained 
to the wall is the iron handcufiF that used to be em- 
ployed for the punishment of the guest who w^ould 
not or could not drain his bumper. By this con- 
trivance the hand was fastened at a painful height, 
while water was poured down the recusant's sleeve 
from time to time, until either he desisted from his 
obduracy, or his tormentors became too drunk to 
do their duty. The chapel contains some painted 
glass more than four centuries old, and reading-desk, 
family pew, and servants' seats, all bear tokens of an 
age when personal comfort was wholly dissociated 
from the rites of public worship. Besides a great 
number of mere kennels for guests and their ser- 
vants, too small for half the paraphernalia of a 
modern toilette, there are several state-chambers. 
One of these contains two very deeply embayed 
windows, with panes but little over an inch square 
set in lead. In another of these chambers is pre- 



FOUNTAINS ABBEY. 9 

served a once most magnificent state-bed, with can- 
opy and hangings in tatters, in which royal person- 
ages have often slept, and which was transported to 
Beaver Castle, the usual residence of the Duke of 
Rutland, when George IV. once made him a visit. 
In the garden attached to this house, I saw the finest 
specimens I have ever seen of the topiary-art, — 
the training and clipping of trees and shrubs so as 
to represent various figures. There was one clump 
of shrubbery so cut as to reproduce in great perfec- 
tion the form of a peacock with bill, crest, and tail 
complete ; another equally good, representing the 
heraldic cognizance of the bear and staff. 

With the prevailing love for antiquity, ruins are 
of course cherished in England as nowhere else. 
So strong is the passion for them, that brand-new 
artificial ruins are found, not only on the grounds 
of parvenus of cockney extraction, but, incongru- 
ously enough, on the estates of some of the oldest 
famiUes in the kingdom, — showing that taste does 
not appertain of necessity to noble lineage. 

Of all the actual ruins I have seen, those of Foun- 
tains Abbey are the most extensive and the most 
interesting. They cover sixty-four acres, a space 
about as large as the Boston Common; and they 
are set in a framework of lake, stream, lawn, grove, 
and forest, unsurpassed in that quiet, slumberous 
beauty, which is the dominant type of English sce- 
nery, and which accords most perfectly in tone with 
the memorials of long-vanished generations. The 



10 OLD ENGLAND. 

tower of the convent-churchy two hundred feet high, 
is still standing, together with fragments of its walls, 
arches, and pillars, sufficient to enable one to trace 
its contour, to determine its several divisions, and 
to form a distinct conception of its architecture. 
It was of the upright Gothic, highly ornate, and 
yet massive enough to survive in its dismantled 
condition from the time of Henry VIII., when it 
was first exposed to human violence, through sev- 
eral succeeding centuries in which no efficient meas- 
ures were taken for its preservation. The walls 
of the abbot's house, too, are in great part standing 
and his magnificent dining-room is distinctly trace- 
able, with portions of its splendid double colonnade. 
Least of all to be forgotten are the convent kitchen, 
with its chimney sixteen feet broad, and the dining- 
room of the brethren hard by, with the high little 
gallery where one of the fraternity was doomed to 
read while the rest ate. Then there are cloisters 
enough to lodge a little army of cenobites, alms- 
houses, reception-houses for strangers, supplement- 
ary edifices for divers uses, sacred and secular, all 
unroofed, shattered, and dismembered, yet in such a 
condition that the reconstructive fancy is seldom, 
baffled or perplexed. The walls are heavily fes- 
tooned with ivy ; the brook that turned the abbey 
mill winds murmuring among the displaced flag- 
stones ; venerable yews, beeches, and sycamores 
curtain all the avenues ; and in the park through 
which the tourist's access lies, vast herds of deer, 



BOSTON. 11 

SO tame that they suffer the near approach of man, 
are, no doubt, the hneal descendants of those whose 
haunches were wont to smoke on the abbot's table. 

On the same journey from London on which I 
saw Fountains Abbey I visited Boston, which, in 
the air of venerable antiquity, is second only to 
Chester. It lies somewhat aside from the usual 
route of travellers ; but when I was at Cambridge, 
I could not resist the temptation to make my almost 
daily home-passage " from Cambridge to Boston." 

The greater part of Lincolnshire — the fen-coun- 
try — looks like a tract borrowed from Holland. 
By diking and draining it has been reclaimed from 
the sea, which, but for unnumbered windmills that 
work pumps in times of inundation and freshet, 
would long since have taken back what it gave. 
It abounds in canals much wider than most of the 
English rivers, which, great in song and with 
crowding historical and literary associations, are 
generally smaller than the nameless rivulets of our 
country. This whole region is on a dead level, with 
scarce a hillock, and it has a dreary, chill, water- 
logged aspect ; but it is profusely fertile, and its 
crops of grain and grass are the richest on the island. 

In this region is Boston, about five miles from 
the sea, on both sides of the river Witham, — an 
estuary almost dry at low tide, but swollen into a 
deep and vigorous stream by the rapid and high 
tides that set in from the German Ocean. The 
niost remarkable object in Boston is the Church of 



12 OLD ENGLAND. 

St. Botolph, which is, I think, the largest, and is re- 
garded as the most magnificent parish church in 
England. By a coincidence singular, if not de- 
signed (and it can hardly have been designed), it 
has as many doors as there are months, as many 
windows as there are weeks, and as many stairs in 
the ascent of the tower as there are days in the 
year. The tower, which is most elaborately fin- 
ished, is as high as the church is long ; and in the 
lantern near its summit, in early times, a beacon 
fire was kept up for the guidance of travellers by 
water, whether on the open ocean or among the ad- 
jacent marshes. The eastern chancel window is 
one of surpassing beauty, representing a series of 
subjects connected with the ancestry, the earthly 
sufferings, and the celestial glory of the Saviour. 
The Cotton Chapel, used as a vestry and a deposi- 
tory for records, was put into its present neat, but 
by no means elegant condition, by contributions from 
Boston, Massachusetts, and has a mural tablet of 
brass, with a highly classical inscription in Latin to 
the memory of John Cotton, written by the late 
Mr. Everett. I confess I was but ill-satisfied to find 
so scanty memorials of a name which had there be- 
come illustrious for learning and piety, long before 
it was heard in the New World. Indeed, the in- 
conspicuousness and smallness of the tablet, and 
the reticence as to this chapel of the otherwise 
very communicative sextoness, led me to believe 
that there was at least a Avil]in£i:ness to ignore the 
Puritan vicar. 



BOSTON : PAST AND 1 RESENT. IB 

Among the many old houses in Boston is the 
birth-house of John Fox, the martyrologist, — long, 
low, with broad latticed windows, and with heavy 
cornices projecting over each story, — evidently in 
its time the house of a family of ample substance 
and a highly respectable position, but now kept as 
an ale-house and dram-shop. There are many other 
family mansions that must have been old in John 
Cotton's time, and yet seem incapable of decay ; 
and there is one mediaeval tower, windowless and 
roofless, the only remaining portion of the splendid 
residence of an ancient and extinct family, whose 
lands somehow fell into the ownership of the mu- 
nicipal corporation, and were conveyed by that 
body to a citizen of Boston, with the truly English 
stipulation, that he should " keep the tower in its 
present form as a ruin." 

There was a time when Boston maintained a very 
extensive commerce in fish, corn, salt, wool, and 
woollen goods ; and in King John's reign it was the 
second commercial town in the kingdom, having 
about nine-tenths as much trade as London. The 
only remaining tokens of this thriving condition 
are certain quaint, massive, low-browed ware- 
houses, too dark and mouldy for any possible use, 
too thoroughly soaked in brine to be ever burned, 
and seemingly too solid for mastication hj the mor- 
dant tooth of time. 

The streets of Boston are narrow and very 
crooked, and there are many lanes hardly wide 



li OLD ENGLAND. 

enough for a wagon-path. The houses of the poorer 
sort have brick floors, generally a little below the 
level of the sidewalk. The town is neat and or- 
derly ; but there are few indications of enterprise or 
of wealth. Indeed, Boston has been stranded dur- 
ing the whole lifetime of her New England name- 
sake, and now claims our interest chiefly on ac- 
count of the daughter, who, with her name, robbed 
her of her brightest jewels. 

I have selected for description certain places and 
objects associated together solely on the score of 
age. I propose in the residue of this chapter, to 
give my remembrances and impressions of Parlia- 
ment and Church, of English oratory and public 
speaking ; and though all I have to say does not fall 
naturally under the text of " Old England," still 
the differences between English and Americkn ora- 
tory are chiefly those which would naturally exist 
between an old and a young people, while there is 
a not unlike contrast between the organism and 
ceremonial both of Church and State on this and 
the other side of the Atlantic. 

Westminster Palace includes the new Houses of 
Parliament, with old Westminster Hall incorpor- 
ated into the structure as a vestibule. The entire 
building, old and new, covers a surface of eight 
acres. Westminster Hall is an immense apartment, 
about three hundred feet long, and is rendered 
memorable as the scene of the great state trials for 



HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. 15 

many centuries, from that of Sir Thomas More to 
that of Warren Hastings. Here Charles I. was 
condemned to die. Here have been enacted the 
most momentous tragedies in the history of the 
kingdom. The architecture of this hall is solemn 
and impressive, as befits the theatre of transactions 
involving the destiny of a nation. In apartments 
opening from the hall on either side still sit the 
four great law-courts of the kingdom. The Houses 
of Parliament are built of Yorkshire limestone. 
They are of a modernized Gothic, with three huge 
and lofty towers. The edifice is splendid and beau- 
tiful, yet unsatisfying to the eye ; for it lacks sym- 
metry, — it suggests no idea but that of a costli- 
ness bevond calculation. It is immense without 
grandeur, exhausting all the resources of art save 
the genius which alone can vivify and harmonize 
its creations. The ante-rooms to the Chambers 
of Parliament are interesting chiefly from their his- 
torical frescos,^ among which I was glad to see one 
representing the embarkation of the Pilgrims from 
Delft Haven for New England. The Chambers of 
the Lords and the Commons are richly decorated 
with gilding and carved work, but are smaller and 
much less convenient for their uses, than most of 
the legislative halls in our state capitols. 

1 I use the word fresco in its common acceptation. It properly be- 
longs only to pictures in which the colors are laid on fresh plaster, into 
which they sink so deep as to be indelible; while almost all the modern 
and many of the mediae v^al pictures that bear the name oi frescos are 
paintings on dry walls. 



16 OLD ENGLAND. 

In the House of Commons the Speaker and the 
clerks wear (as do all the judges and barristers in 
the several courts) gowns, bands, and gray flaxen 
wigs, — the wigs being made of flax as fine as silk, 
with rows of puff-curls, and two curls pendent be- 
hind. The Lord Chancellor, in presiding over the 
House of Lords, wears a huge flaxen wig which 
entirely covers his cheeks, and hangs over his 
shoulders like a vandyke. His seat looks like a 
scarlet woolsack (whence its name), with another 
smaller sack as a pillow for the back, but with no 
support for the arms, — the very acme of discom- 
fort for a long session. The bishops appear in the 
House of Lords in white robes, with full lawn 
sleeves. 

Li the House of Commons I heard Mr. Glad- 
stone's valedictory speech on retiring from the min- 
istry. His elocution was plain and dignified, but 
with no display of oratory. The speech would 
have fallen dead upon an American audience. His 
manner could hardly have been other than it was, 
had he said the same things in his own library to 
two or three intimate friends. 

In the House of Lords I heard a singular debate, 
which seemed to belong to the dark ages. A bill 
was introduced which ran somewhat in this wise : 
'' Whereas in the year 1814, the parish church of 
Sunbury, having fallen into decay, was repaired 
md remodeled, and the altar was placed ten feet 
six inches from its former site : whereas this chancre 



DINNER SPEAKING. 17 

in the position of the altar remained unnoticed un- 
til it was recently discovered in the examination of 
plans of the church in its original state ; and whereas 
many persons have been married at that altar, sup- 
posing it a place legally consecrated for the celebra- 
tion of marriage, — therefore be it enacted, that 
such mamages be declared and deemed legitimate." 
This bill was opposed by one of the bishops, on 
the ground that, were it passed, due care might not 
hereafter be taken in the repairing of churches to 
preserve the site of the altar unchanged, — a pos- 
sibility, the very thought of which seemed to fill 
him with holy horror, and to avert which he was 
willing to throw into chaos the property, domestic 
relations, peace, and well-being of an entire com- 
munity. The bill was passed by a large majority ; 
that on such a question there should have been a 
minority in the negative, unless in an assembly of 
idiots, is to me inconceivable. The epithet which 
best characterizes the speaking in the House of 
Lords is gentlemanly. It is not merely courteous 
in form ; but it is manifestly the natural, spontane- 
ous utterance of high-bred men, who would not 
know how to be coarse, rude, or vulgar. 

I had several opportunities of hearing the best 
English after-dinner speaking, which is so utterly 
unlike ours, that the lovers of one could not even 
tolerate the other. At an English dinner-table the 
spread-eagle element is entirely wanting. There 
is no talking against time, no oration making, none 



18 OLD ENGLAND. 

of that kind of speaking which has primary refer- 
ence to the next day's newspaper report. It is ht- 
erallj table-talk, onlj loud enough to be heard by 
the whole company, — as free, simple, unartificial 
as the tete-d-tete conversation of fellow-guests, but 
withal rich either in wit, wisdom, or both. It 
seemed to me that on such occasions men did not 
talk for the sake of saying something, but because 
they had something to say. The only dinner- 
speaker whom I heard that approached the studied 
oratory to which we are used on similar occasions, 
was a deaf man, Napier, late Lord Chancellor of 
Ireland, who evidently had adopted an almost 
rhythmical style of utterance as the best mode of 
governing the voice without the aid of the ear. 

It was my happiness to receive an invitation to 
the last dinner at which Lord Brougham presided, 
the annual dinner of the Association for the Pro- 
motion of Law Reform and Social Science. Lord 
Brougham was too feeble to walk across the room 
without assistance ; yet he spoke with all the vigor 
and earnestness of youth. Age has had no mellow- 
ing influence upon him, but has manifestly toughened 
and indurated him. His face is as hard as flint, 
with the deep furrows of strong thinking, but with- 
out a line suggestive of kind feeling or of ordinary 
human sympathies. I suppose that he has been a 
not ungraceful speaker ; but, if so, no grace is left. 
His speech is abrupt, vehement, torrent-like in its 
rapidity, — like a torrent tumbling among rocks 



THE ENGLISH PULPIT. 19 

that roughen its flow. On the occasion on which I 
saw him, he made, as President, the opening 
speech, and followed several other speakers with 
shorter addresses expressive of approval or dissent. 
I cannot dispel certain canine associations with his 
face and voice. He certainly has, with nobler ele- 
ments, no little of the bull-dog. 

At a dinner of the Society of Political Econo- 
mists, I heard, among other distinguished men, John 
Stuart Mill, who cannot of course speak otherwise 
than ably and pertinently, but whose utterance is 
feeble, hesitating, and unimpressive, while his bear- 
ing indicates extreme timidity and diffidence. 

English pulpit eloquence, in general, seemed to 
me utterly unworthy of its office, and entirely 
below the demand of the times ; and I always 
found the most meagre preaching where the appa- 
ratus for the highly artistical performance of relig- 
ious services was the most ample and elaborate. 
I attended, one Sunday evening, one of the meet- 
ings for the people of which we have heard so 
much, under the dome of St. Paul's. There could 
not have been less than three or four thousand 
persons present. The preacher had come from 
Edinburgh, and was announced by placards all over 
the city for eight or ten days beforehand. His 
sermon was just fifteen minutes long, consisted 
only of desultory remarks by which I thought he 
was groping his way toward a subject, and while 



20 OLD ENGLAND. 

I was listening with some solicitude .for the an- 
nouncement of his theme he broke off Avith the 
closing cloxolotry. The sermons that I heard at the 
Temple Church, Westminster Abbey, and sundry 
cathedrals, were, in general, admirably written, but 
jejune or trite in thought, and cold as an iceberg. 
The ministers of the parish churches, especially 
those of the evangelical party, impressed me much 
more favorably. They preach like men thoroughly 
in earnest ; but they have not yet found the most 
efficient way of doing their work. They are very 
much in the habit of preaching from partially 
written sermons, extemporizing at frequent inter- 
vals, with a small Bible in the hand from which 
they read illustrative texts, often naming the chap- 
ter and verse. Their evident sincerity and earnest- 
ness greatly interested me ; yet it seemed to me 
— I know not if it were so — as if they were in a 
transition state, — as if this method had but lately 
come into use ; they had not yet become accus- 
tomed to it, and were forfeiting the advantages of 
the fully written sermon, without having acquired 
due freedom and power in extempore utterance. 

Of course I heard Spurgeon, and I regard it as 
a great privilege to have heard him. His Taber- 
nacle is on the Surrey side of the Thames, about a 
mile and a half from Temple Bar, an immense 
building, severely simple in style, with a row of 
Doric pillars and a Grecian pediment in front. 
Within, two deep galleries extend along all four 



SPURGEON. 21 

sides of the edifice. Tliere is no pulpit. The 
preacher stands surrounded by hearers, on a semi- 
circular platform which projects from the lower 
gallery, opposite the entrance-doors. The church, 
when I was there, was entirely full, and it is said to 
contain not less than four thousand persons. The 
audience were breathlessly still, except at the close 
of the prayers and the exposition, and at pauses 
between the heads of the sermon, when there was 
a tumultuous explosion of suppressed breathing, 
coughing, and analogous processes. The service 
was two hours and a half in length ; yet no one 
seemed to be fatigued. There were three hymns 
sung by the congregation without any instrumental 
accompaniment, and the sound was " as the voice 
of many waters." There were two prayers, and a 
reading of Scripture with an able and copious ex- 
position. The sermon was strongly Calvinistic, 
and I could not entirely sympathize with its doc- 
trinal statements ; but it was real preaching, and 
the preaching of the church dignitaries seemed 
child's play as compared with it. 

Spurgeon has a physiognomy full of strength and 
beauty. The ordinary engravings of him are like 
him, yet unlike. They give him a somewhat 
coarse, sensuous look, which he may perhaps have, 
when his features are in repose ; but in preaching 
his countenance is radiant, spiritual, and wonderfully 
vivid in its play and in its prompt adaptation to the 
thought he utters. His voice is the finest I eve/ 



22 OLD ENGLAND. 

heard. Every syllable could be clearly distin- 
guislied by every ear in his vast audience, and his 
tones were all those of easy, colloquial discourse, 
with no rant, and no striving for effect. There 
are in his early printed sermons passages revolting 
for their coarseness and irreverence, poor jokes, 
stale anecdotes, illustrations drawn from low life ; 
but I am inclined to think that these were due to his 
then imperfect culture. He has evidently been 
a rapidly improving man, and he must have made 
himself familiar with the best models of style. 
When I heard him, there was not a word which 
could offend the most fastidious taste. His language 
was pure English, with a predominance of the 
Saxon element. His words were singularly well 
chosen. There is a rare intensity and lifelikeness 
in his mode of stating religious truth, which ar- 
rests and enchains the attention. Without degrad- 
ing spiritual themes, he makes them seem almost 
visible and tangible. His imagery is sensuous, as 
appealing to the perceptive faculties, yet pure and 
elevating to the thought. He translates, as it were, 
the language and the narratives of Scripture, the 
parables and similes of the Gospels, into the things 
that most nearly correspond to them in our own 
time, and says just what it may be supposed the 
apostles would have written in England in the nine- 
teenth century, in lieu of what they wrote in the 
first century in Palestine. Such preaching teaches 
the common people as they can be taught in no 
other way ; interprets to them what would else be 



NEWMAN HALL. 23 

unintelligible. One cannot hear Spurge on without 
being not only convinced of his sincerity, but im- 
pressed with the entire absence of self-reference, 
his complete identification w^ith his work, and his 
burnino; zeal in the cause of his Divine Master. 
There can be no doubt that he is now exerting a 
more extended influence than any other preacher 
in the kingdom, and is second to none among the 
moral forces in the great metropolis. 

Next to him in his power as a popular preacher, 
his superior by far in culture, his equal in self-de- 
voted zeal, is Newman Hall, whom many of my 
readers have recently heard. I heard him preach 
at St. James's Hall, to an immense audience, com- 
posed almost wholly of the poorest classes, — of 
persons who are never seen in any church. His 
sermon was remarkable for its entire freedom from 
dogmatic subtleties, its directness, simplicity, and 
intense earnestness. Spurgeon speaks as though he 
were wholly absorbed .in his subject ; Hall, as if he 
took up into his own strong emotional natiu'e the 
needs, wants, trials, infirmities, and sorrows of his 
entire audience. With his hale and bluif manhood 
there is a wonderful closeness and tenderness of 
sympathy, and the coarse, rude people hang upon his 
words, as if a brother, who felt all that they feel, 
were pleading with them for their highest good. 

At the widest possible distance from these men is 
another great preacher, well known by his writings 
on this side of the Atlantic, — Martineau. I heard 
out one sermon from him, and that was a discourse 



24 OLD ENGLAND. 

of very extraordinary power and merit. It was 
undoubtedly occasioned by his then recent rejection 
as a candidate for the Professorship of Intellectual 
Science in the London University, in effecting 
which the decisive weight was thrown into the ad- 
verse scale by well known positivists. The sermon 
was a profoundly philosophical vindication of the 
Divine Providence against the postulates of the 
positive philosophy. So much, so deep, and so 
fructifying thought can seldom have been condensed 
into the same space ; and though his hearers listened 
intently, as if accustomed to highly concentrated 
spiritual nutriment, there are few congregations in 
Christendom which such a discussion would not 
have overtaxed. With the philosophy there ran 
alono; a rich vein of devout sentiment, so that to 
recipient minds there was edification no less than 
instruction. But the preacher's manner was chill- 
ing. His voice is clear and strong ; but his deliv- 
ery is almost monotonous, — not the monotony of 
indifference or dullness, but of suppressed feeling, — 
still less the monotony of feebleness, but of reserved 
and smothered power. His oratory is eminently 
that of a commanding mind, weighty and impressive ; 
but at the same time it is heavy and unexciting. 

I have space only to add, that Martineau ap- 
proaches the normal type of English oratory much 
more nearly than Spurgeon or Hall. Old England 
prefers in her orators, with the gravity and wisdom, 
the subdued and quiet tone and style of mature, if 
not of senile age. 



CHAPTER 11. 

LONDON. 

Municipal Organization. — Climate. — Police. — Literaiy Associations. 
— Parks. — Contrasts. — The Bank. — The Royal Exchange. — The 
Thames. — The Tunnel. — The Tower. — Westminster Abbey. — 
St. Paul's. — The British Museum. — The South Kensington Mu- 
seum. 

We complain of Englishmen for never under- 
standing the complicated and interacting machinery 
of our state and national governments. It is equally 
difficult for an American to comprehend the muni- 
cipal organization of London. London lies in three 
counties, and is a confederation of cities, parishes, 
and precincts, each autonomous to a certain extent, 
and the whole united by a common system of ad- 
ministration rather than under a common central 
government. But in the different sections of the 
metropolis, while there is a community of system, 
there is a wide diversity of form. In some districts, 
churchwardens and vestries discharge precisely the 
same functions that in others are vested in muni- 
cipal officers. 

The jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor does not ex- 
tend beyond London proper, which comprises not 



26 LONDON. 

more than a tentli part of the territory called Lon- 
don, and not more than a twentieth part of its in- 
habitants. Adjacent to this is the ancient city of 
Westminster, in which are Westminster Abbey, 
the Houses of Parliament, St. James's Palace, and 
almost all the buildings belonging to the national 
government. London, in its restricted sense, small 
as it is, includes much more than the Londinium of 
the ancients, the territory embraced within the wall 
probably constructed by Constantine, hardly a ves- 
tige of which now remains except in the names be- 
queathed by its gates — such as Newgate, Ludgate, 
Bishopsgate — to the streets upon which they opened. 
Temple Bar, at the western extremity of the old 
city, separating it from Westminster, is the only 
gateway now standing, and this was built by Sir 
Christopher Wren, after the Great Fire. The gate 
at Temple Bar is never closed, except when the 
sovereign is going to enter the old city, — a rare 
event, occurring only on some religious ceremonial 
of national significance at St. Paul's, or on some 
great civic festival. Then a herald sounds a trum- 
pet before the closed gate ; another herald knocks ; 
after a parley in prescribed and ancient forms, the 
gate is thrown open ; the Lord Mayor surrenders 
his sword of office to the sovereign, and receives 
it again from the hand of royalty. 

In going westward from Temple Bar into West- 
minster we enter the Strand, now one of the most 
crowded and busy streets in London, with short and 



CLIMATE. 27 

densely peopled streets leading to the river, and 
numerous streets and thoroughfares parting from 
it on the opposite side. The name has adhered to 
it from the time when it was a mere river-strand, — 
a narrow, thinly-settled suburban lane, washed by 
the Thames. The Strand terminates at Charing 
Cross, near which is the spacious and stately par- 
ish-church of St. Martin 's-in-the-Fields, originally 
built, as its name implies, for a suburban and almost 
rural population. But Charing Cross is now the 
chief centre not only of London, but of cosmopolitan 
travel, omnibus lines radiating from it to every part 
of the city, and railways communicating, directly 
or by intersecting lines, with every portion of the 
island, and across the Channel with the Continent. 
What has taken place with the Strand, has equally 
taken place with the whole territory of London. 
Its different sections were formerly separated by 
sparsely inhabited spaces ; but now the whole 
ground, of more than a hundred and twenty square 
miles, is one continuous city ; there is hardly room 
for new streets ; and if the population of nearly 
three millions is to have any considerable growth, 
it must be outside of the present limits. 

The climate of London is that of England in gen- 
eral, modified by the coal smoke and soot from un- 
numbered chimneys. In summer this is not annoy- 
ing. There is then a slight haze in the atmosphere, 
much less, however, than hangs over our great 
manufacturing cities in the West. I have never 



28 LONDON. 

enjoyed more genial summer days than in a Lon- 
don midsummer. Yet on the brightest day there 
are generally sudden and brief showers, and an 
umbrella is as essential a part of a Londoner's ap- 
parel as his coat or hat. The summer heat is sel- 
dom oppressive. Indeed, the fashionable season 
lasts through midsummer. In the winter a heavy 
coal-mist hangs continually in the atmosphere. 
For an hour or two before and after noon, on a 
reputedly fair day, the sun may be seen, blood-red 
like a full moon, floating as in a sea of melted tal- 
low. There are a few severely cold days, but the 
winter temperature is generally mild. I spent the 
first fortnight of February in London, and during 
that time there was not a day colder than the aver- 
age of our New England May days. During that 
fortnight I did not once see a star. I suppose that 
most of the nights were fair ; but starlight has not 
penetrating power sufficient to break through so 
opaque a medium as the London winter sky. 

London is an admirably governed city. The 
police are omnipresent, and the officers on duty are 
the most courteous and helpful of men, giving 
promptly and explicitly all local information that 
may be desired, and taking the utmost pains to di- 
rect the wayfaring stranger. I should start without 
liesitation from any point in London for any other 
point however obscure or distant, in the full assur- 
ance that by the aid of these functionaries I should 
be put and kept upon the shortest and best route. 



LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS. 29 

There are indeed districts where one might en- 
counter peril by night ; but in the streets which a 
stranger is hkelj to frequent, one is conscious, at 
any hour, however late, of entire safety from assault 
or molestation. Indeed, it is difficult to know when 
the London night begins. If there be a " dead of 
nig-ht," it is the hour before sunrise. But there is 
hardly an appreciable interval between the roll of 
the late coaches and the rumblino; of the earlv mar- 
ket- wagons. The latest hours of my experience 
were dinner at eight o'clock, supper at one, and a 
retreat among the first from a party at half past 
two ; and, per contra^ I found it very difficult to coax 
toojether the materials of a breakfast before nine, 
and I never felt sure of accomplishing any out-of- 
door purpose till the sun was at least half-way to 
the meridian. 

One of the great charms of London to an Amer- 
ican consists in the identification of the very spots 
familiar to him as often recurring in English books, 
or associated with the crreat names in English liter- 
ature. Thus, in Fetter Lane we find the dwelhns;- 
house of Dryden, — a high, narrow building, in the 
quaintest style, entirely unchanged, except that the 
ground-floor is fitted up as a beer and ale shop, — 
a use which would not have been unwelcome to 
the poet in his life-time. The old Fleet prison, 
the not infrequent home of poets and authors for 
many generations, is indeed taken down ; but, in 
standing on its site, it is easy to see how its pub- 



^ 



30 LONDON. 

licity made it at once a scandal to the city, and a 
place of the most facile communication with, the 
outside livino' world. Houndsditch, at first a canine 
cemetery, we know through books as centuries ago 
inhabited ahiiost wholly by Jews. It is still their 
abode, and over every one of its numerous beer- 
shops is inscribed, " Rum and shrub during the 
whole of Passover," during which period fermented 
liquors, as well as leavened bread, are forbidden 
to the faithful. Little Britain remains the site of 
book-stalls and kindred branches of traffic. Covent 
Garden Market is, as of old, the greenest place in 
London, no flesh being sold there, but only vegeta- 
bles, fruits, and flowers. Smithfield, after having 
been for centuries renowned for jousts and tourna- 
ments, then for other centuries alternately dese- 
crated by criminal executions and hallowed by 
martyrdoms, became the greatest cattle-market in 
Europe, and is now awaiting I do not remember 
what other mode of occupancy. The present build- 
ing for the Blue Coat School is new, and we can- 
not define the precise habitat of each of the men 
of world-wide fame who studied, starved, and suf- 
fered there ; but the boys may be met every day 
in the neighborhood of Newgate, in the cruelly gro- 
tesque apparel ordained at the foundation more 
than three hundred years ago, and then intended 
as a menial livery, namely, a short blue gown, 
white bands, yellow petticoat and stockings, red 
girdle, and a black yarn cap, or rather mat, of the 



THE PARKS. 31 

circumference of a small saucer. St. Sepulchre's 
Church was mjured m the Great Fire, and restored 
in an altered style ; but its magnificent and in- 
tensely sombre Gothic steeple frowns, as of old, 
over the sad precincts of Newgate, and its bell still 
tolls the final hour of those under sentence of death. 
Beneath the floor of this church lies the body of 
the great American navigator, marked only by a 
slab bearino; the name of John Smith. The old 
Bow Church, so called because it was the first 
church in the city that was built on stone arches, 
perished in the Fire ; but the Bow Bells, on its now 
venerable successor, hang in Cheapside just where 
Whittington heard them, and give voice to a clock 
that juts out from the church over the crowded 
sidewalk. 

The parks of London form one of its most striking 
geographical features. There are some eight or ten 
of these in the very heart of the city, the smallest 
twice, the largest more than seven times as large as 
the Boston Common. Victoria Park, the newest 
and most beautiful, is in the extreme East End, the 
poorest section of the city, and was expressly de- 
simied for the health and recreation of the common 
people. Some of the parks are, indeed, frequented 
by the aristocracy. This is especially the case with 
Hyde Park, and the world can produce no more 
gorgeous show of dress, horses, and equipage, than 
may be seen in the afternoon (the morning of the 
fashionable world) on Rotten Row (a corruption 



32 LONDON. 

of Ro^ite du Roi)^ and on the drive along that very 
straight sheet of water misnamed the Serpentine. 
But at all hours, in fair w^eather, you may find in 
the parks the very kind of persons that most need 
them, — invalids, students, nursery-maids, children, 
family groups, and worn looking men and w^omen 
out on a rare holiday, — large numbers of people 
whose whole aspect and mien show that their ex- 
press object is to breathe in fresh air, and to feast 
their eyes on trees, flowers, and running water. 
These grounds are laid out with very great beauty 
and in a wide diversity of style, combining forest, 
fountain, lawn, and flower-garden, and some of them 
containino; rare exotics amono; the trees and shrubs. 
They must have an immense sanitary efficacy, in 
interposing such large open spaces between differ- 
ent sections of the city, no less than in their special 
ministry to the thousands upon thousands of their 
daily visitors. 

In addition to the parks, there are numerous 
squares of various dimensions, from two to eight 
or ten acres, which open for many hundreds of 
dwellings, avenues to the light and air of heaven, 
and which, in the more aristocratic quarters, are laid 
out and planted with adequate taste and skill. 

It is impossible to describe London by any gen- 
eral terms. No other great city is so heterogene- 
ous, or presents so many contrasts in close prox- 
imity. The most squalid street I ever saw,^ 

1 Called Church Street, no doubt from the edifice opposite to its en- 
trance. 



CONTRASTS 38 

commences almost mider tlie shadow of St. George's 
Church in Hanover Square, so noted for fashiona- 
ble marriao'es. Similar streets, too narrow for car- 
riage-ways, offensive to every sense, peopled with 
beings whose age might be determined by the 
depth of the deposit of filth upon their persons, 
wind in and out hard by the Inns of Court with 
their shaven lawns and their air of learned repose. 
In some quarters of the city, broad and deeply 
shaded streets, lined with stately dwellings, hear 
not even the distant echo of busy, tumultuous life. 
Some modest districts are as rural in their aspect as 
a New England country village ; each house with 
its little garden. The eastern portion of the city 
is crowded with buildings, new, cheap, and mean. 
The buildings occupied by the great merchants and 
bankers are, for the most part, massive, substantial, 
but by no means showy, and many of them of ven- 
erable age. The shops, though commodious, are 
seldom magnificent, and none of them can bear 
comparison with the most attractive shops of Boston 
and New York. The Strand, Fleet Street, Cheap- 
side, and Cornhill — in fact one continuous street, 
and the main artery of the city circulation — are 
thronged with such a closely stowed, multitudinous 
life as can be seen nowhere else in the civilized 
world, — a double line of pedestrians, omnibuses, car- 
riages, and drays pressing up and down in so dense 
array, that the corkscrew movement is the only 
practicable mode of progress, and that not without 

3 



34 LONDON. 

frequent stoppage, and such clioking of the pave- 
ment that the interlockms; of wheels can be avoided 
only by consummate vigilance and skill. In this 
otherwise straio^ht thoroucrhfare, St. Paul's stands 
as a vast barrier, and the narrowed passages around 
it are a maelstrom from which it seems as if the 
floundering vehicles could never emerge sound and 
whole. 

The Bank of England is the centre of commer- 
cial life. It is a sombre building of gray stone, 
with no pretension to architectural beauty, with no 
windows on the outside, and, so far as it admits the 
light of day, receiving it through windows over- 
looking an inclosed court-yard. Some idea of the 
immensity of this institution may be formed from 
the fact that no less than eleven hundred people, in- 
cluding armed sentries, are employed on the prem- 
ises. All the printing for the Bank is done within 
the building. The notes are never reissued, and 
the notes returned are cancelled, registered, filed, 
and kept seven years, so that if there be any ques- 
tion about any individual note, it can be answered 
at the Bank. Nearly a hundred persons are em- 
ployed on the notes that come in from day to day. 
Here, and at other English banks, gold is not 
counted, but weighed. You present a check for 
twenty pounds, and the teller takes up gold in a 
shovel and throws enouo-h into a scale for the index 
to point at the right weight. From this weight 
there cannot be the deviation of a grain. There 



f THE THAMES. 35 

are, in the Bank of England, several machines for 
testing gold pieces, in constant operation. The 
pieces are put into a cylinder slightly inclined. If 
a piece be too large, as it probably will be if a 
counterfeit of lighter and baser metal, it will not take 
its place in the cylinder ; if one be too small, at a 
certain point of its descent it is jerked out as if by 
unseen fingers. At a lower point each piece drops 
into a balance from which, if too light, it is jerked 
out ; while the pieces of normal size and weight 
fall into a hopper below. 

The Royal Exchange stands not far from the 
Bank, the third building on the site, its predeces- 
sors having been destroyed by fire. It is an im- 
mense building, with pillars and pilasters of the 
Corinthian order, with a light and graceful central 
tower, with ample space on the principal floor for 
the congregating of merchants and bankers, and 
with spacious and elegant apartments, occupied by 
Lloyds' and other similar establishments. Here 
and at the Bank one is overwhelmed with the evi- 
dence of wealth in perpetual transit, beyond the 
power of thought to measure or of figures to desig- 
nate. 

The same impression of multitudinousness, vast- 
ness, opulence, and intense activity that is made 
upon the stranger as he passes through the princi- 
pal streets and marts of the city, rests upon him 
equally as he rows or steams on the Thames. At 
Liverpool one sees the still life of commerce, — such 



36 LONDON. ^ 

forests of masts lying tier upon tier in the dock, 
and jammed together as if there were neither exit 
for the imprisoned sliips, nor room for the entrance 
of another. Bnt the Thames is hardly less a 
crowded thoroughfare than the Strand. Its consis- 
tency of swirling mud might leave you almost in 
doubt, on a windy day, whether the dust that flies 
in your face is blown oif from the shore, or rises 
from the river on whose bosom you are floating. 
But, however this may be, there is incessant mo- 
tion. There are London steamers leaving and tak- 
ing passengers at frequent stairs ; for the expedition 
and cheapness of this mode of transit — a penny 
fare for several miles — make it a preferred method 
for a large proportion of the city travel. There 
are steamers to cheap watering-places and places of 
amusement, swarming with passengers ; and steam- 
ers to various Continental ports. The flags of all 
nations may be passed on the stream, and laden ves- 
sels are arriving and departing every moment, while 
unnumbered row-boats are threading their serpen- 
tine way, surging in the wakes of steamers, darting 
under the bows of merchantmen, shooting out into 
the melee from docks and landing-stairs. 

The river is crossed by several bridges of the 
most solid workmanship. It is a myth that 

" London Bridge is broken down." 

A more substantial piece of masonry the earth bears 
not on its bosom. An army of elephants might 
trample over it, and it would not vibrate under 
their tread. 



REMARKABLE BUILDINGS. 37 

The Thames Tunnel is a mao-nificent mistake. 
It was designed as an avenne for foot travel ; but 
it is so far below the centre of the city, that it ac- 
commodates very little travel of business or neces- 
sity, and those who pass tlu'ough it are principally 
strangers from the rural districts, or foreigners. It 
is the most lonely, I might say the only lonely 
place in London ; and I can hardly conceive that 
the paltry toll of visitors can more than pay for the 
Hghting. I took a boat at London Bridge, and waJ: 
rowed two or three miles to the site of the Tunnel. 
Then I descended several long flights of steps, found 
myself in a gas-lighted corridor, and thence crossed 
the river under its bed by a narrow arched way 
about half a mile in length, gloomy, damp, almost 
slimy. Along the walls are numerous booths for 
the sale of beer, lemonade, eatables, and paltry 
trinkets, all at fancy prices. There are two of 
these ways. One only was then open to the pub- 
lic. A city railway company has since purchased 
the Tunnel, and is about to lay its track over one 
or both of the roadways. Satisfied with my sub- 
marine passage, I very gladly emerged into daylight 
by another series of staircases on the Wapping side, 
and took a steamer thence to Charing Cross. 

In professing to describe London, I ought not to 
omit the buildings identified with it in history. 
But here I must run the risk of describing what 
many of my readers have seen, and many more 



38 LONDON. 

have often read about. However, as I shall draw 
my materials from my own notes, I may chance to 
specify what others have overlooked. 

I will first say a few words concerning the Tower 
of London. This lies on the north bank of the 
Thames, at the eastern corner of the old city. 
There must have been a fortification here in the 
Roman times ; for it is a point which could not 
have been left unguarded. But the oldest part of 
the present pile is the White Tower in the centre, 
known to have been built by William the Con- 
queror. What is now called the Tower is a con- 
fused cluster of buildings, most of them extremely 
old, and some of them very lofty and imposing, 
though without any striking architectural beauty, 
surrounded by a turreted wall, — the wall sur- 
rounded by a moat now dry and grass-grown, and 
containing within its inclosure a park or parade- 
ground of moderate extent. It was formerly relied 
on as the chief military defence of the city, though, 
should England's floating wooden walls and iron 
bulwarks fail, it would present but feeble resistance 
to the improved modes of modern warfare. It is, 
however, manned by a considerable body of troops, 
and contains the principal supply of all arms, ex- 
cept artillery, for both the army and the navy. It 
is interesting mainly for its relics, curiosities, and 
historical associations. The crown-jewels are kept 
here, — the koh-i-noor amoncj; the rest. This im- 
mense diamond of course challenges admiration ; 



THE TOWER. 39 

but it is too large for any conceivable use, and 
therefore its very magnitude detracts from its 
beauty. In one apartment are the suits of steel and 
chain armor that belono-ed to all the Eno-lish kinss 
that ever wore such armor, as also suits bearing 
the names of many renowned knights and nobles. 
These are arranged as if in battle-array, the figures 
representing the former owners on horseback, the 
horses also in full plate armor, and the squires, sim- 
ilarly encased, each standing at his master's side. 
There are also in the armory materials for a com- 
plete history of the art of war, — specimens of an- 
cient, antique, and foreign weapons and defensive 
apparatus of every description, and from almost 
every nation under heaven. In another apartment 
are preserved thumbscrews, boots, racks, and divers 
instruments of torture, — a sight cheering and 
gladdening to those who believe in human progress^ 
and know that such instruments can never be em- 
ployed again by civilized man ; arousing, too, some 
ancestral pride, for the modes of torture here indi- 
cated are humanity and mercy, compared with those 
the mementos of which are to be found in Nurem- 
berg and other continental cities. 

I felt no little interest in seeing the octagonal 
chamber in which Sir Walter Raleigh was confined 
for twelve years, with his bed-room, excavated in 
the prison-wall, which is here seventeen feet thick. 
The room, for many centuries used principally for 
state-prisoners, bears unerased on its walls the in- 



40 LONDON. 

scrip tions made by its inmates, many of them very 
elaborate, some poetical, some pictorial ; and a list 
of the names here written would comprise not a 
few who wore out their lives in duress or closed 
them on the scaffold, because the world was not 
worthy of them. The block and axe used for the 
execution of the two wives of Henry VIII. and of 
Lady Jane Grey, are shown to all visitors. But I 
need not proceed with this enumeration. There is 
no end of the memorials of tyranny and violence 
treasured up in this sad spot ; while beneath the 
floor of the plain and gloomy chapel, still used for 
Divine service, lie the remains of almost all that 
were beheaded within these walls. 

I pass from the Tower to Westminster Abbey. 
This majestic pile has been the work of eight cen- 
turies, and hardly a year elapses without additions 
or restorations, all in keeping with the solemn 
grandeur of the original design, though it is easy to 
point out incongruities, and marks of the prevailing 
taste of successive ages. But a Gothic building 
needs not perfect symmetry. Its vast outlines, its 
depths of shadow, its innumerable details, of which 
only a small part can be taken in at any one view, 
permit much of the diversity which makes a land- 
scape beautiful ; and not a few of the European 
cathedrals present, like this, a history of architec- 
ture, and are only the more grand and impressive, 
because they seem less the conception of one mind 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 41 

than the growth of centuries. The main building 
of Westminster Abbey is a perfect church, with 
choir, nave, and transepts ; and within the church 
are numerous chapels, partly closed, yet so far open 
that in certain positions one can get a full view of 
the entire length and breadth of the edifice. The 
church occupies one side of a quadrangle, of which 
the other three sides are lined with rows of cloisters. 
There are numerous painted windows of various 
styles and ages ; and the stone-work of the interior 
IS elaborately carved from the ceiling to the floor. 

The church and the cloisters are foil of monu- 
ments and of monumental inscriptions. One can 
hardly step without treading on a name, and fre- 
quently an illustrious name. The walls are cov- 
ered with memorial tablets, often of great elab- 
orateness and beauty, often more venerable than 
beautiful. On the floor are innumerable structures 
of greater or less artistical pretension, — many of 
them temples in themselves, — of every conceiva- 
ble style, in brass, iron, bronze, alabaster, marble, 
— with life-size figures in every possible position, — 
frequently groups representing ar>numerous family ; 
for instance, a father laid out in state, his wife 
weeping over him, a troop of children arranged on 
either side of the couch. There are many royal 
monuments, remarkable at once for their sumptu- 
ousness, the multitudinousness of their details, and 
their skillful execution, which generally far exceeds 
the artistical merit of the design. Some of the 



42 LONDON. 

most costly monuments, of alabaster, with gilded 
mouldings and bands, have become utterly black 
with age. 

Among so many memorial structures there are, 
of course, the widest diversities of artistical genius 
iind no-genius. Many of them are rude in concep- 
tion by reason of their antiquity. Many are showy 
ind gaudy by reason of their newness. Not one is 
worthy of the world-wide celebrity which belongs 
to such works of the kind as may be seen in 
Vienna, Venice, Florence, and Rome. Some of 
the most ostentatious, some of the most genuinely 
beautiful, commemorate names else unknown, and 
some, names only too well-known. The inevitable 
John Smith, as the Latin epitaph has it, de prosapia 
Smithorum Northumbriensium (from the stock of 
} Northumberland Smiths), has his many virtues 
transmitted to posterity in a lofty and elegant mar- 
ble structure large enough to be generic in its pur- 
pose. The Poets' Corner is profoundly interesting, 
as containing the dust or cenotaphs of some thirty 
or more of the most illustrious poets of the king- 
dom, from Chaucer downward ; but interspersed 
with these are memorials of about an equal number 
of persons whose claim to a sepulture so honored, 
however valid, has faded from the memory of 
man. Not only there, however, but in every part 
of the edifice, one is amazed by the affluence of the 
foremost names in science and literature, arts and 
arms, state and church. Few names are wanting 



ST. PAUL'S. 48 

of those which History could not spare, nor Fame 
erase from her scroll. It is, if I mistake not, an 
entirely unique cemetery, — the only national place 
of sepulture in the world, — the only spot whose 
monuments epitomize a people's history. Most ap- 
propriately, as under a guard of honor drafted from 
the centuries of the dead, are kept in the Abbey 
the coronation-chairs of the sovereign and the royal 
consort, — the former having fastened under the 
seat the huo;e stone of Scone, on which the Scot- 
tish monarchs were crowned. Had I been left to 
my own judgment, I should have supposed these to 
be penitential chairs, belonging to the old conven- 
tual regime, so cruelly straight, stiff, and hard are 
they, rude and unsightly too, without a particle of 
ornament. Happily, coronation occurs but once in 
a lifetune. 

The choir of the abbey-church is screened in 
part, is handsomely fitted up in a somewhat modern 
style, and is used for daily and Sunday services, 
making an auditorium about as large as the average 
of our city churches. The nave has no furniture 
except some thousands of plain flag-bottomed 
chairs, which are stacked during the week, and 
arranged on Sundays for one of those evening ser- 
vices for the people, which are among the aggres- 
sions upon the heathenism of the great city, inaug- 
urated by the present energetic Bishop of London. 

St. Paul's is, undoubtedly, in many respects a 



44 LONDON. 

splendid failure. A temple or cathedral is even 
more the work of its age than of its architect. It 
embodies the sentiment of the generation at whose 
bidding it has birth. No genius, however exalted, 
can impose upon a people a house of worship un- 
suited to its conceptions of grandeur and devotion. 
St. Paul's was built too late, — at a period when 
the religious sentiment, however sincere, had 
ceased to embody in material forms its whole energy 
and fervor, thus petrified into enduring life. It was 
erected after the Great Fire, toward the close of 
the seventeenth century. The architect. Sir Chris- 
topher Wren, was thwarted in his plans by the 
condition of the kingdom. It was in his heart to 
build, on the site of the immense cathedral that 
had been burned, a church that should be especially 
fitted for Protestant worship, and should, at the 
same time, be worthy of its place as the cathedral 
of the great metropolis. But his plans were made 
under the last of the Roman Catholic kings, a little 
before the Revolution of 1688 ; and James, deter- 
mined that the Protestant ritual should be abolished 
before the completion of the edifice, overruled the 
architect in almost all essential points. The result 
was a compromise, which Romanism would accept 
with great hesitation, and which Protestantism finds 
but imperfectly availing. Add to this, that by 
court cabal Wren was dismissed from public em- 
ployment before the building was finished, and that 
his incompetent successor made additions against 
which he vehemently protested. 



ST. PAUL'S. 45 

The edifice suffers, also, from its situation. 
There is no point from which it can be seen in 
perspective, nor yet can the front be seen in full 
at a distance of more than a hundred feet. St. 
Paul's Churchyard has long since ceased to be, ex- 
cept in name ; Paternoster Row, Amen Corner, 
and Ave Maria Lane, are, I apprehend, resonant 
of more curses than prayers ; and the cathedral re- 
tains little more than the groimd it stands on. It 
suffers, too, from the foul atmosphere. Tradition 
says that it was built of white marble. Large por- 
tions of it are now of continuous black ; other parts 
are slightly streaked with a dingy white. But the 
dome, which is seen at a very considerable distance, 
is surpassed in grandeur only by that of St. Peter's, 
being at once massive and airy, and as it looms up 
through a dense fog seeming to float upon the 
clouds. There are, also, at the corners of the 
front or western portal, two steeples of exquisite 
grace and beauty, of a style, I think, peculiar to 
Wren, and repeated by him with variations, but 
with the same general effect, in all his churches. 

The interior is symmetrical and grand in its de- 
sign, but very unequally finished. The choir is 
elaborately and beautifully fitted for worship, and 
here are performed the regular daily and Sunday 
services. The space under the dome, capable of 
seating an audience of four thousand, is used for a 
people's service on Sunday evening, furnished only 
with flag-bottomed chairs, and lighted by jets of 



46 LONDON. 

gas springing from the circumference of the dome. 
In a loft in one of the transepts is an immense 
organ, played only on state occasions ; that in com- 
mon use stands in the choir. A large part of the 
interior — adapted to the paraphernalia of Roman 
Cathohc worship — contains only monuments and 
memorial tablets ; and the architectural efPect is 
greatly impaired by the superabundance of unoccu- 
pied and dreary space in the floor and on the walls. 
The style of the edifice is Composite, with a prepon- 
derance of the Corinthian order, wherever the con- 
ditions imposed on the architect admitted the em- 
ployment of that order. 

Among the institutions of its kind in the British 
empire, and indeed in the whole world, no one 
takes precedence of the British Museum. The 
library alone contains nearly a million of volumes, 
with room for half a million more. The most 
noteworthy part of the establishment is the reading- 
room, a rotunda one hundred and forty feet in di- 
ameter, and of a height nearly equal to the diam- 
eter, from the floor to the summit of the dome, 
which has a larger span than any other dome in 
existence. In this room, on aisles which radiate 
from the centre, are seats for about five hundred 
readers, each seat being furnished with a desk and 
writing materials. Any properly introduced and 
certified person, of either sex, may frequent this 
apartment. On a central desk is a manuscript cat- 



THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 47 

alosue of the library in many volumes ; and in 
cases set in the circular wall of the reading-room 
are reference books, to the number of twenty 
thousand and more. Any authorized reader, by 
writing on a card his name, the number of his desk, 
and the titles of the books he wants to read or con- 
sult, can send for any book in the whole library, 
however rare or costly, and can have the use of the 
same secured to him from day to day, by inserting 
his card in it when he leaves his desk. 

Another department of the Museum is devoted 
to the colossal bulls and lions, and the many other 
objects of curious interest, brought from Nineveh ; 
another, to similar massive works from Egypt. In 
another are the Elgin marbles, with a vast collec- 
tion of architectural and sculptural fragments from 
Athens, among which are some of the reputed 
works of Phidias. There are also immense collec- 
tions in every department of Natural History ; col- 
lections, too, of British antiquities, and of antiquities 
and curiosities of all ages and nations, costumes, 
weapons, culinary utensils, ornaments, skulls, in 
fine, everything that can illustrate history or eth- 
nology. 

In the basement are sitting-rooms and refec- 
tories, so that one may pursue his studies till night- 
fall without neglecting those more material needs, 
the regular supply of which the normal English- 
man never omits or postpones. The whole build- 
ing is open daily for all registered readers, and on 



48 LONDON. 

certain days in the week for the entire pubhc, not 
only without fee, but with printed notices that any 
attendant known to receive a fee is peremptorily 
dismissed from the service. 

Of this institution the National Museum at South 
Kensington is, in some respects, a duplicate, in 
others a supplement. The buildings and grounds 
at South Kensington are on the most extensive scale, 
including a large botanic garden with greenhouses ; 
a collection of models of patents ; the National 
Portrait Gallery ; a gallery of paintings, containing 
large collections of Turner's and Landseer's works, 
and, above all, Raphael's original cartoons for the 
Vatican ; specimens of the products of all the arts 
in all times and lands ; models of artistical objects, 
from Trajan's Column downward ; models, drawings, 
and studies for pupils in the arts. But I must 
pause. It is easier to say what is not there than to 
tell what is there. 

In the style of the old divines, I want to close 
this chapter by a " practical application." These 
institutions are sustained, regarded, treated, and 
used, not as mere show-places, but as educational 
institutions for the people. One cannot visit them 
without seeing more persons who come to learn 
than who come merely to gaze. Now any and 
every institution which essays this educational office 
has emphatic claims on the support of a people 
whose sole safety lies in the intelligence of its vo- 
ters. We have one such institution — local only 



ZOOLOGICAL MUSEUMS. 49 

because it must have a definite locality, national, 
nay, cosmopolitan in its purpose and administra- 
tion — the Zoological Museum at Cambridge, al- 
ready superior in many respects to the correspond- 
ing department in the British Museum. It is 
largely and generously educating our youth in the 
science which it illustrates, and is yielding to the 
State, for the funds which have built and endowed 
it, the most ample return in the liberal culture 
which it imparts. Shall it be suffered to languish 
by a community whose annual waste of wealth 
would suffice for its permanent support, its rapid 
growth, and its ultimate superiority to any other 
similar collection in the civilized world ? 



CHAPTER III. 

SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 

Scottish Lakes. — Highland Scenery. — Ben Nevis. — Killarney. — Tho 
Jaunting-car. — The Gap of Dunloe. — The Irish Lakes. — Mendi- 
cancy. — The English Lakes. — Memorials of Wordsworth. — Shef- 
feld. — Manufactures of Iron and Steel. — Edinburgh. — Old and 
L-^w City. — Scott's Monument. — Diablin. — St. Patrick's. 

The lake regions of the three kingdoms of 
Great Britain are all attractive and charming ; 
while each has its own peculiar characteristics. As 
the order in which I saw them may have affected 
my impressions of them, I will preserv^e the same 
order in my description. 

The Caledonian Canal is the name given to a series 
of cuttings and locks, by means of which Scotland 
— before deeply indented by the Friths of Aloray 
and Clyde, and with several lakes and rivers be- 
tween them — is completely bisected for ship-navi- 
gation, from the German Ocean to the Atlantic, 
Inverness and Glaso;ow beino- the usual termini, 
at least for pleasure travel. On tins route I took 
passage in a steamer from Inverness, the capital 
of the Highlands, passed through Lochs Dochfour, 
Ness, Oich, and Lochy, then, to avoid the delay of 



FALLS OF THE FOYERS. 51 

a long series of locks, made a detour of a mile in 
an omnibus, and reembarked on Loch Eil for Oban, 
where I passed the night. 

This day's navigation carried me through the 
heart of the Highlands. No wonder is it that here 
has been found so rich inspiration for poetry and 
song. The route lies through constantly varyino 
mountain scenery, much of it intensely beautiful, 
much of it hardly less grand, solemn, and majestic 
than the wildest mountain regions of Switzerland. 
We left the steamer for an hour to visit the Falls 
of the river Foyers, a sight which Professor Wilson 
declared worth a walk of a thousand miles. We 
have, indeed, immeasurably grander falls in Amer- 
ica. This is a. mere thread of a cataract; but it 
descends through the most picturesque of chasms, 
with such a settino- of rock and forest scenery as 
makes the tiny white sheet transcendently lovely. 
While the lower portion passes into Loch Ness in 
a shadow too dense to be pierced by the beams of 
noonday, the upper part is open to the sun's rays, 
and the spray presents the full spectrum of pris- 
matic colors.^ 

1 Burns commemorates these Falls in a passage remarkable for the 
almost prosaic accuracy of the description, and, at the same time, no( 
destitute of poetical beauty. 

" Among the heathy hills and rugged woods, 
The roaring Foyers forms his moss}' floods; 
Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds. 
Where, through a shapeless breach, his stream rebounds* 
As high in air the bursting torrents flow, 
As deep receding surges foam below, 



f.'l 



bZ SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 

Of all the mountains Ben Nevis is the sovereign. 
Viewed from the lakes it has the aspect of a colos- 
sal elephant, crouching on the summit of a lower 
mountain, while its color in the shade is that of the 
elephant's hide, which it resembles also in seams and 
corrugations, — deep fissures, doubtless, but which 
reminded me of the wrinkles in the animal's skin. 
In many of the clefts near the summit are patches 
of perpetual snow, and they lie at such an angle as 
in the morning sunlight to present the roseate hue 
often seen among the Alps. Ben Nevis is but one 
of a myriad of Bens of all shapes and dimensions, 
almost numerous enough to represent the old tribe 
of Benjamin, man by man. Some of them are 
wooded to their summits, some covered with ferns 
and mosses, the lowest with grass. Some are tilled 
for several hundred feet from the base ; many have 
bare crowns and precipitous sides ; and many are 
tumbled about in such tumultuous raggedness and 
desolation, as to remind one of the day when the 
earth-born giants " piled Ossa upon Pelion, and 
leafy Olympus upon Ossa." 

We passed many of the sites most famous in le- 
gend, tradition, and poetry, and by several ruined 
castles that had borne a distino-uished name and 

Prone down the rock the whitening sheet descends, 

And viewless Echo's ear, astonished, rends. 

Dim seen through rising mists and ceaseless showers, 

The hoary cavern wide surrounding lowers. 

Still through the gap the struggling river toils, 

And still below the horrid cauldron boils." 



LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS. 53 

part in Highland warfare. The old castle of Ur- 
quhart, which was captured by Edward I. in 1303, 
still frowns from a bold promontory over Loch 
Ness. On a rock on the margin of Loch Oich is 
the dismantled castle of Invergarry, which was 
the rallying point of the clan subject to the " Lord 
of the Isles." We passed near a boulder of sev- 
eral tons' weight which the peasantry of the neigh- 
borhood still believe to have been thrown by Rob 
Roy when hard pressed by his pursuers ; and the 
skeptical are silenced by the question, " How then 
came it here ? " It differs, in point of fact, as to its 
geological structure, from all other rocks in the vi- 
cinity. Inverlochy Castle, built by the Banquo of 
Macbeth's time, covers a large area on the shore of 
the river Lochy, and a path below its walls still 
bears the name of " Banquo's Walk." We went far 
up into Glencoe, the most sombre of glens, deeply 
wooded, Avith the wildest of mountains frowning 
over it, — a fit scene for one of the most horrible 
massacres that ever defiled the records of humanity. 
We saw the very ferry over a rapid current, where 
Lord Ullin's dau2:hter was lost. There is a lig-ht- 
house hard by it now, built, no doubt, to prevent the 
recurrence of a like calamity to runaway maidens. 
I inquired whether she had ever been heard of, and 
a Scotch gentleman, who seemed very intelligent, 
surprised me by saying that he had never heard 
of her. As his residence was near the ferry, I con- 
cluded that since her father " was left lamenting," 



54 SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 

there had been no tidings of her. But there is nc 
end to the exciting associations and memories con- 
nected with that day's voyage. 

Oban, where we landed for the night, is the usual 
starting-point from the South for a Highland tour, 
and a place of fashionable resort, well worth visit- 
ing for its lake and mountain scenery. Oban lies 
on Loch Linnhe, and the first two or three hours 
of the next day's voyage were on that lake. We 
passed through the Sound of Lorn ; but no one 
could show me " the house of fair Ellen of Lorn." 
The Island of Mull, which is very mountainous, 
with some peaks nearly as high as Ben Nevis, was 
in sight for seA^eral hours. We emerged from the 
Lake region by the Crinan Canal, and after navi- 
gating a series of inlets from the sea, came into the 
broad Frith of Clyde, verdure, cultivation, and 
beauty taking the place of the sterile and awful 
grandeur of the Highlands so gradually, that it was 
hard to say where the one type faded and the other 
began to predominate. 

Of the Scottish lake region, wild and solemn 
sublimity is the prevailing characteristic ; awe and 
adoration give the key-note to the traveller's 
thought ; and beneath the rude, bold, colossal out- 
lines of nature, man and his works are utterly 
dwarfed and almost lost from sight. 

I visited the Killarney Lakes on a charming day 
In July. There was a slight haze, like a veil of 



THE GAP OF DUNLOE. 55 

the thinnest gauze, between the sun and the earth, 
and just clouds enough to cast ever varying and 
flickering shadows on the hills and waters. I 
started from the town of Killarney in that peculiar 
Irish institution, a jaunting-car, which it may be 
worth a parenthesis to describe. The jaunting-car 
is roofless, and has two seats placed back to back, 
like the seats of an omnibus reversed, each seat' 
fitted to hold two persons. If there be two or four 
passengers, the driver is perched in some inscrutable 
way in front ; if one or three, he preserves the bal- 
ance by occupying one of the seats, placing himself 
at an angle of forty-five degrees with his horse. 
One not " to the manner born " finds it necessary 
to hold on, by one hand at least. The jolting is 
indescribable, — a compound motion for which I 
would defy the most astute mathematician to con- 
struct the scientific formula. 

A drive of five or six miles from Killarney, 
through scenery gradually rising from beautiful to 
grand, brought me to the Gap of Dunloe, through 
which a pony, evidently aboriginal, took me, for 
four miles, over what merits to be called a bridle 
path, only because it is actually thus used every 
pleasant summer's day. The Gap is a notch or 
cleft between mountains more than three thousand 
feet high, — in some places so narrow that three 
men would ride abreast with difliculty, with precip- 
itous walls that admit only the midday sun ; in 
other parts, in its increased breadth and the gentler 



56 SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS 

acclivity of its sides, reminding me of the Fran- 
conia Notch in New Hampshire. It terminates in 
what is called the Black Valley, by far the broadest 
part of the defile, but with so nearly perpendicular 
cliffs frowning over it as to keep it in perpetual 
shadow. 

From this valley I suddenly emerged upon the 
upper of the three Lakes. While far from present- 
ing the multitudinous panorama of mountains which 
I had admired in the Scotch Highlands, this is more 
closely walled in by mountains than any of the 
Scotch lakes, and by mountains offering a very 
great diversity of scenery, — some bald, craggy, and 
precipitous ; most of them, however, glowing with a 
rich purple tint from the heather that clothes them 
from the summit to the base. There are several 
deeply recessed bays, with tall cliffs projecting over 
them. Nothing can be more picturesque than this 
lake ; but on its bosom one is shut out from the 
whole world beside, — the position is almost like 
that of the crater of a volcano. In one of the 
bays lies the last of the serpents, which St. Patrick 
enticed into a box by false representations, then 
shut the lid upon him, and threw the box into the 
water. I questioned our boatmen about the story, 
and found that they had no doubt of its truth. 
They said- that on the approach of a storm the 
snake always makes a great commotion in the water 
by attempting to get out of the box. I learned 
from other authorities that the water at that point 



MUCKROSS ABBEY. 07 

is very deep, and therefore very turbulent when a 
storm is impending. The passage from the upper 
to the middle lake is by a river five or six miles 
long, more than serpentine in its convolutions, and 
so narrow that flowers might have been plucked from 
both sides of our boat at the same moment. 

The middle, or Muckross Lake, is less wild than 
the upper, but no less beautiful. It has mountain 
scenery on one side, contrasted, on the other, with 
the richest Irish views of alternating hill, valley, 
meadow, wheat-field, grass-field, forest, and sheep- 
walk. I emphasize Irish ; for the green of Ireland 
is so intense a green, that I could not have imag- 
ined it without seeing it, and had I previously 
chanjjed upon a picture representing it as it is, I 
should have supposed it overwrought, unnatural, 
and impossible. The tint can be matched in vivid- 
ness only by those brilliant dj^es which Ave some- 
times see in shells from the ocean. 

A very short passage leads into the lovver lake, or 
Lough Leane. This is by far the largest of the 
three, and the least picturesque, yet inexpressibly 
beautiful, — its surroundings consisting wholly of 
park, lawn, and forest, planned, cultivated, and 
adorned with consummate skill, and maintained at 
heavy cost by the two titled proprietors. On a 
peninsula between the middle and lower lakes, 
are the charming ruins of Muckross Abbey, richly 
festooned with ivy, — the floor and walls of the 
?hurch retaining numerous monuments of the dead 



58 SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 

of earlier centuries, while the gentry and people of 
substance in the neighborhood still use the sacred 
inclosure as a cemetery. On an island in the 
lower lake, close by the shore, are the rums of Ross 
Castle, which was anciently a celebrated stronghold 
in Irish warfare, and in the great Civil War was 
the last of the Irish fortresses to surrender to the 
Parliamentary forces. So much of this castle re- 
mains, that one might easily construct a plan of it, 
as it was when fully occupied and defended. The 
peasantry believe that its original proprietor, the 
fi^reat chieftain O'Donoghue, still lives in the lake, 
and makes his appearance every first of May. 

I ought not to forget the human part of the 
scenery of this beautiful region. In and to more 
senses than one I found there a verification of the 
familiar lines of Bishop Heber's hymn, 

" Where every prospect pleases, 
And only man is vile. " 

It is impossible to estimate the multitude of men, 
children, and especially women, who live chiefly as 
beasts of prey, and almost drive the desperate trav- 
eller into the water, where alone he can be quit of 
them. Some have ponies to let ; some, bugles to 
blow ; some, guns to fire. Then there are nume- 
rous venders of bogwood ornaments, and of articles 
manufactured from the wood of the arbutus. 
There are blind men, with wives to hold their hats ; 
and legless men, wdth children to run after pennies ; 
and idiots who, incapable of learning anything else, 



KILLARNEY LAKE REGION. 59 

are adepts in the science of mendicancy. The 
women bring out goats' milk and mountain- deii\ 
(the Hibernian euphemism for whiskey), and run 
along with their bottles as fast as the car or pony 
can go at full speed, — always so civil and good- 
natured that you cannot speak rudely to them, and 
opposing the resistance of a laugh or an attempted 
joke to every rebuff. And 

'' 0, did ye ne'er hear of Kate Kearney? 
She lives by the Lake of Killarney," 

and a granddaughter of hers was among the most 
eloquent and persistent of my tormentors. I had 
heard much of Swiss and Italian beggary. Its 
pressure and urgency bear no comparison with the 
leechlike tenacity of the Irish mendicant. Lan- 
guage, or even gesture, can convey a negative 
to the sturdiest Continental beggar ; the Irish mind 
is impermeable to a negative. Even if you aver that 
your silver and copper are exhausted ; if you show 
your empty purse, or turn your pockets inside out, 
the secretive habits of the people preclude their be- 
lief in your veracity, and sustain their faith in 
some recondite hoard which their importunity may 
open. 

The Killarney lake region, exclusive of the Gap 
of Dunloe, is more weird than grand, bizarre rather 
than wild, a fit scene for fairy revels, but not for 
the sanguinary legends of fierce gods and savage 
men that seem the indigenous growth of the High- 
land lake country. 



GO SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 

The English lake region is preeminently slum- 
berous in its character. Everything about it sug- 
gests repose and indolence ; even literary activity 
seems out of place there ; and De Quincey might 
have revelled there in waking dreams without the 
aid of opium. The waters are surrounded by 
mountains, as they are called, and they are high 
enouo"h for the clouds and mist-wreaths to rest and 
play upon their tops and sides ; but the clouds seem 
rather to stoop to the hills, than the hills to rise to 
the normal altitude of the clouds. The clouds do 
undoubtedly hang low ; for it rains there almost 
every day in summer. And I have never had 
glimpses of beauty surpassing those that broke in 
upon me there in lucid intervals between showers, 
when the mist-wreaths became rainbows, and the 
clouds masses of silvery smoke, while the mountain- 
tops and hillsides shot out light-beams of dazzling 
green, as the sun was reflected with intensest bril- 
liancy from grass, ferns, and foliage. The moun- 
tains are all green, and nowhere else have I 
seen vegetation so rich. The trees are such masses 
of leafage, that one can liardly see their limbs, 
while close-clinaino; vines mantle their trunks and 
hide the bark. The walls, houses, and stables seem 
mere frames for ivy to climb upon, and it requires 
no little use of the shears to keep unobstructed 
window-room enouo-h to let davlight into the dwell- 

O , CD 

ings. There are very few rocks, and they are, all 
but one, coA^ered with moss, and hung with ivy. 



MEMORIALS OF WORDSWORTH. 61 

The houses are dotted round m the most charming 
spots, now on a penmsular tongue of land, then on 
a spur of a hill, with a steep acclivity behind, then 
in some dell, by tlie side of a rivulet, with a gar- 
den or a. serpentine walk climbing a hill in the rear. 
There are many fine cascades, some falling from a 
great height. 

The lakes are all small. Windermere, the 
largest, is ten or twelve miles long. Rydal Water 
is hardly larger than many artificial ponds in pri- 
vate grounds. Grasmere may cover some two or 
three hundred acres. Conistone, which is not much 
larger, is navigated by a steamer so liliputian that 
it looks like a model for the shelf of a museum. 
Six passengers would crowd it ; a dozen would sink 
it. 

Of course, the memorials of Wordsworth are a 
prominent object of interest. His home was a small, 
thin, plain two story house, of rough stone plas- 
tered with a grayish stucco, almost hidden by trees 
and shrubbery, and almost wholly covered with 
ivy. It is on the brow and near the summit of 
Rydal Mount, which is a spur of Nab Scar, — the 
highest mountain in that vicinity. Behind it is the 
Doet's favorite w^alk, — a narrow footpath, first as- 
.•ending, then descending toward the highway. On 
the opposite side of the road, just over Rydal 
Water, reached by a short flight of steps, is the 
rock where Wordsworth wrote a great many of his 
poems. He w^ould sit there, day after day, close; by 



G2 SKBnCHKS OF TRAVEL IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 

the highway, jet screened from it by the interven- 
ing foliage, with the Kttle lake just under his feet, 
and with scenery of tropical luxuriance and beauty 
all around him. This is the one bare rock to which 
I just now referred. The frequent feet of pilgrims 
wdll not let the moss or ivy grow upon it. Gras- 
mere church-yard, two or three miles from his 
house, was his family burying-place. There lie the 
bodies of Wordsworth, his sister, and his children, 
and of his wife and her sister, — their resting-places 
marked by head and foot stones of plain black 
slate. Hard by is the grave of Hartley Coleridge, 
with a simple, graceful monument of white marble. 
In the Grasmere church, on the wall of an arch 
against which Wordsworth's accustomed pew is 
built, is a mural monument to him, of Italian 
marble, with an excellent bust of him in alto-re- 
lievo below the inscription. The church is, in its 
exterior, massive and imposing ; in its interior, rude 
in the extreme, — the general structure having un- 
dergone no change for seven or eight centuries, and 
the present pews having been built in the sixteenth 
century. 

Among the many dwellings hallowed by personal 
associations, I had peculiar pleasure in visiting Fox 
How, Dr. Arnold's favorite retreat. The house is 
moderately large and very pretty, not, however, 
quaint or picturesque, close by a little winding 
river (brook we should call it in America), deeply 
embowered in trees and shrubbery, with a high hill 



SHEFFIELD. 63 

directly in front, — as completely shut out from all 
the world's sights and sounds as Robmson Crusoe's 
home could have been. 

But I need not multiply descriptions of particular 
sites. What I have said may suffice to illustrate 
the peculiar charm of the Lake country for men of 
unworldly habitudes, and to show why it is that 
the literature to which it has given birth, is less re- 
nowned for strength than for beauty. 

On my tour to the English lakes, my point of 
departure and return was Sheffield, and, though 
with no other association, except it be that of con- 
trast, I will make the transition in my narrative. 
The existence of this city of more than two hun- 
dred thousand inhabitants is an item of assured be- 
lief, rather than an observed fact. It can be seen 
only during a general and prolonged strike. A 
dense cloud of smoke and soot hangs perpetually 
over the city, slightly relieved on Sunday, yet not 
then admitting any clear sunlight. The richer 
citizens emerge from the smoke at nightfall, and 
live on cheery, healthy heights in the suburbs, in 
sumptuous villas, from whose windows and grounds 
the cityward view is precisely what that of Sodom 
and Gomorrah was, the day after they were burned. 
I had my domicile with a kind friend in that fa- 
vored region ; but I had previously dined at the 
Black Swan Inn, — most appropriately so called ; 
for not even a swan could keep white there. 



64 SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 

The wliole neighborhood is beautiful. From the 
rich valleys of the Sheaf and Derwent the ground 
rises mto heath-covered moors, from which the eye 
can range over a vast extent of territory, while 
the lungs inhale an atmospheric tonic with every 
breath. 

There is, within the city, very little of architec- 
tural splendor or beauty, and an American manu- 
facturer would be amazed at the generally paltry 
and shabby aspect of the great establishments 
whose names are known all the world over. The 
extensive manufactories are unified, not by the 
builder's original act, but by bridges or covered 
ways that connect neighboring edifices else un- 
related, or by unsymmetrical extensions and out- 
buildings. 

Cutlery is nominally the staple of Sheffield ; but 
steel and all possible manufactures of iron and 
steel are made here. There are not a few immense 
forges and foundries, and the manufactories of 
Bessemer steel would seem on too large a scale to 
be worked except by Cyclopean artisans, till we 
see how deftly the steam-giant tilts the huge caul- 
dron of molten metal, and poises on his finger's 
ends red-hot bars as large as rafters. Of course, 
gold and silver electroplating, as among the iron 
arts, is to be witnessed here. I need not describe 
the process, it has been so recently and so ably 
portrayed by Mr. Parton in the " Atlantic Monthly " ; 
but the great diversity of objects to which it is ap- 



ROGERS' CUTLERY. 65 

plied, the uniformity and completeness of the work, 
and the nicety with which the thickness of the 
plating can be predetermined and tested, filled me 
with wonder and delight. 

No name is better known in America than that 
of the Messrs. Rogers, in connection with every 
form of cutlery. Their show-room is magnificent, 
exhibiting a large assortment of electro-plated 
ware, as well as of cutlery, together with no 
small amount of goods in gold and silver. The firm, 
however, makes nothing but cutlery, and my read- 
ers may form some idea of the magnitude of its 
operations, when I say that its complement of 
operatives exceeds six hundred, and that for knife- 
handles alone, a ton of ivory is used every month, 
the ivory bearing a very small proportion to the 
horn and bone consumed. A pocket-knife that is 
sold for sixpence, passes through more than twenty 
different hands. The operations are performed, for 
the most part, in small, dingy, mean-looking apart- 
ments, each large enough for from two to six work- 
men. Steam-gearing is carried through all the 
rooms, and steam-power is put into requisition 
where it would seem the part of idiocy to reject it ; 
but a great many of the processes, which in this 
country would be conducted by machinery, are per- 
formed by the unaided hand. Indeed, I think that 
from a third to a half of the time and labor of man 
that it costs in Sheffield to make any given piece 
of cutlery, would make it in America. 1 said so itc 

5 



66 SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 

the foreman of the Rogers firm. He rephed that 
he was well aware of this, but that the intense jeal- 
ousy of new machinery and of labor-saving proc- 
esses on the part of the operatives, made it danger 
ous to introduce improvements, — experiments of 
that kind having frequently resulted in the exten- 
sive destruction of property and life. I noticed the 
same difference, due, undoubtedly, to the same 
cause, between the Sheffield nail, tack, and screw 
factories and those which I have seen in Taunton 
and in Providence. 

From Sheffield I went north to Edinburgh, and 
I will ask my readers to go thither with me for a 
little while. Edinburgh has a weird, unreal look, 
like a city in cloudland or dreamland. It is made 
up of two distinct portions, the Old and the New 
City, separated by a broad and deep ravine. In 
the New City are wide streets, fashionable hotels, 
genteel houses, handsome shops, public squares, 
monuments, statues in bronze and marble. In the 
Old City are a few streets of moderate width, some 
good houses, most of the churches, and the Uni- 
versity ; but the greater part of it is in narrow 
streets, with old tumble-down houses (many of 
them once palaces), from six to ten stories high, — 
these streets intersected by closes and wynds (that 
is, lanes and alleys), so narrow that two persons 
cannot meet in them without contact, often mere 
tunnels, and when open above, so dark from over- 



EDIXBURGH : THE OLD CITY. 67 

liantrino; walls — it may be fifty or sixty feet hicrh 
— that their midday is feeble twilight. These por- 
tions of the city are so offensive to the nostrils, that 
one cannot conceive of human life beino- sustained 
in them. Yet it is sustained in such swarms that it 
is hard to believe one's own eyes. 

I have nowhere else seen or imamned such to- 
kens of a redundant population as in the Old City 
of Edinburgh. The women and children live, not 
merely on the sidewalk, but in the middle of the 
streets, and do their knitting and sewing seated in 
the very carriage-way, moving a little to make room 
for an occasional dray or wagon. In London I do 
not know that I saw a barefooted woman ; in Edin- 
burgh I saw none but well dressed women that 
were not barefooted. The poor women in Ireland 
dress redundantly, heap rag upon rag, and often look 
as if a ragbag had been emptied on their backs ; 
in Edinburgh the poor women wear as little as they 
can, and, though less depraved than corresponding 
classes in other cities, they seem to have less of the 
instinct of decency than can be found in any other 
part of the civilized world. The only mark of 
cleanliness to be seen in these poorer quarters is the 
vast quantity of clothes always hung out to dry ; 
for the week seems to be a continuous w^ashing-day. 
The clothes are suspended on poles projecting from 
the windows, and are to be seen on every story, 
Prom the tenth downward. 

In the Old City the poorest houses are, of course, 



68 SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS- 

as elsewhere, let in single apartments. The better 
sort, and many also in the New City, are let in flats 
or half flats, and it is very common to see on each 
side of the street-door of a respectable house, five, 
six, or eight bell-pulls, with as many name-plates. 

The Old City is considerably higher than the 
New, and there are, in some parts of it, streets 
under streets, making, literally, a two story town. 
On the side of the Old City, the intervening ravine 
is very precipitous. This ravine is beautiful, — 
a part of it as w^ild as Nature left it, part converted 
into a park or public garden, very prettily laid out, 
and crossed at a hio-h level bv brido-es. 

The royal castle, the chief military post in Edin- 
burgh, is on the sommit and brow of a precipice in 
the Old City, and is a confused pile of buildings of 
different ages, with no pretence to symmetry or 
beauty. The principal objects of curiosity there 
are the crown, sceptre, and other regalia of the 
Scottish kingdom ; the little room in which James 
VI. of Scotland and I. of England was born, with 
a curious metrical inscription in black letter, com- 
memorating the event and invoking blessings on 
the child ; and, above all, a quaint little private or- 
atory, built for her own personal use by Queen St. 
Margaret, in the eleventh century, and restored by 
the present Queen. 

Holyrood Palace has so many historical and such 
deeply tragic associations connected with it, that 
^ne treads its halls and staircases almost with awe. 



ARTHUR'S SEAT. Q[) 

Wliile there is much that meets the eye Avlilcli 
tends to deepen those associations, there is very 
httle that can feed the sense of beauty or of grand- 
eur. There is a large gallery of portraits of royal 
and eminent Scotch personages who lived before the 
union of the crowns ; but most of them are poor 
paintings, are less than two centuries old, and are 
not certainly known to have been copied from pre- 
viously existing portraits, but ai'e suspected of being 
inventions and not likenesses, so that they have the 
attraction neither of antiquity, authenticity, nor 
merit. Queen Mary's and Darnley's apartments are 
preserved as they were when they occupied them, 
with the very same tapestiy-hangings, and much 
of the same furniture. Queen Mary's bed remains, 
with a portion of one of the blankets, and there are 
shown some little articles of her toilette, and her 
work-table. There are still distinctly visible the 
stains, made by Rizzio's blood, as he lay all night 
in the ante-chamber. Attached to the palace are 
the ruins of the chapel of Holyrood Abbey, which 
must have been, in its time, far more magnificent 
than any ecclesiastical edifice now left entire in the 
city. 

Close in the rear of the Palace rises Arthur's 
Seat, — a hill nearly a thousand feet high, com- 
manding from its several acclivities and from its 
summit, a series of surpassingly beautiful views, 
3mbracing the city, the surrounding country, the 
whole of the Frith of Forth, and the sea beyond its 



70 SKETCIIKS OF TRAVEL IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 

moutli. On a spur of tliis hill are tlie very pic- 
turesque ruins of St. Anthony's Chapel, and be- 
neath it is a pellucid, living spring called St. An- 
thony's Well, which affords to the American his daily 
refreshment at home, — the rarest of all luxuries in 
Great Britain, — a draught of ice-cold water, the 
only luxury which money cannot purchase, ice being 
so grudgingly used that it is almost impossible to pro- 
cure at hotel or restaurant water that is not tepid. 

On the west of the city, and somewhat lower 
than Arthur's Seat, is Calton Hill, which also is 
rich in its views of city, country, frith, and sea, and 
which has, on or near its summit, the Observatory, 
a very tall and ungainly monument to Nelson, part 
of a Grecian colonnade designed to surround a 
temple commemorative of the heroes of Waterloo, 
left unfinished for want of funds, and monuments 
to Playfair and Dugald Stewart ; while from it and 
near its base are seen the monuments of Hume and 
Burns. On the New City side of the ravine, oppo- 
site the mean and shabby house where he lived in 
the Old City, is a graceful monument to Allan 
Ramsay. 

The most splendid architectural structure in Ed- 
inburgh is the monument to Sir Walter Scott. It 
is a Gothic edifice, terminating in a spire w^hosf 
apex is two hundred feet from the ground. Thf 
lower story is an open space, in the centre of whicf 
is a magnificent marble statue of Scott, seated, 
with his favorite dog at his side. In the four prin- 



SUNDAY IN EDINBURGH. 71 

cipal niches over the lower arches, are figures in 
marble of prominent personages in Scott's poems 
and novels, and there are fifty-two other niches, de- 
signed to be similarly occupied. The monument 
has already cost more than fifteen thousand pounds, 
and the design may probably be completed by an 
additional expenditure of four or five thousand. 

The churches of Edinburgh are, for the most 
part, plain, but commodious, and w^ell adapted to 
Protestant worship. St. Giles' Cathedral is, exter- 
nally, a vast and splendid Gothic structure ; but it 
is now divided into three places of worship, neither 
of which has enough of taste or ornament within 
its walls to distract the attention of the worshippers. 

But if the churches are plain, they are well filled 
and well manned. Sunday is a Sabbath-day in 
Edinburgh. The streets are still ; there is no vis- 
ible pleasure-seeking ; places of business are all shut ; 
and, except at the beginning and close of public 
worship, hardly a footfall is heard on the sidewalk. 
It was refreshing to listen to the able, elaborate, 
vigorous, earnest preaching of the Scotch divines, 
after a sojourn of several weeks in England, and tc 
mark the rapt attention of the full audience, young 
and old, Bible in hand, turning to the texts quoted 
by the preacher, and always designated by chapter 
and verse. I heard Dr. Alexander, the minister 
of an Independent church, and Dr. Hanna,^ of the 
Scotch Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterian 

1 The son-in-law and biographer of Dr. Chalmers. 



72 SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN THE BRmSH ISLANDS. 

churches have no instrumental music, and still sing 
the rude version of the Psalms used in the time of 
the Covenanters. Placards designating the tunes 
to be sung, are suspended in sight of the whole 
congregation, and all join in the psalm, with no per- 
ceptible discord, and, as seems to me, much more to 
the edification of the worshippers, than when the 
service of praise is delegated to a hired quartette. 

I will close this chapter by a few words about 
Dublin. This is one of the most splendid cities in 
Europe, yet to me uninteresting, perhaps because I 
visited it shortly after my high enjoyment of the 
picturesque site and environments of Edinburgh. 
The streets — those that have any appreciable 
breadth (for there are many narrow and filthy 
lanes) — have a very generous width ; the public 
buildings are numerous and imposing ; there are 
several squares and promenades of great beauty ; 
and the dwelling houses on the principal streets and 
squares look solid, ample, and opulent. The city 
lies on both sides of the LifFey, which is a mere 
estuary, and grows, as one ascends it, " beautifully 
less," so that of the seven or eiffht o-raceful bridges 
by which it is spanned, the uppermost is not half 
as lono; as the lowest. The laro;est buildino;, and 
by far the handsomest secular building, is the Bank 
■)f Ireland, formerly the Parliament House. The 
Castle, where the Lord Lieutenant has his resi- 
dence, and where the most important functions of 



ST. PATRICK'S. 7^ 

government are discharged, is a strongly fortified 
group of buildings, of various ages and styles, but 
with no one edifice or apartment that claims special 
mention. The Custom-house, Exchange, and Post- 
office are spacious and elegant modern structures, 
of style and proportions adapted to their uses, 
rather than conformed to any architectural order or 
idea. Among many monuments and monumental 
statues, the principal is Nelson's Monument, note- 
worthy, not for its beauty, but for its conspicuous 
position and its massiveness. It is a huge marble 
cylinder, surmounted by a colossal statue of Nelson. 
By the way, there is hardly a place in Great Brit- 
ain that possesses any work of the kind, which has 
not one commemorative of Nelson. 

The oldest church is Christ Church, which was 
begun more than a thousand years ago, and exhibits 
traces of the workmanship of every age from then 
till now. One of the original entrances has been 
preserved. It is so low that it would seem to have 
been built by a race of troglodytes, and yet it bears 
vestiges of no mean architectural taste and ambition. 

The Cathedral of St. Patrick is in the most 
wretched district of the city, surrounded by the 
dirtiest lanes and the foulest population. It stands 
on the spot where, according to tradition, St. Pat- 
rick baptized the king. It was built in the twelfth 
century, and for nearly three centuries was one of 
the most magnificent churches in Europe ; but it 
was much injured in the civil disturbances of the 



74 SKETCHES OF TRAVEL IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, then was secular- 
ized and surrendered to the law-courts, and finally 
was occupied as a stable by Cromwell's soldiers. 
Though subsequently given back to sacred uses, it 
remained in a dilapidated and almost ruinous con- 
dition till within a few years. It has now been 
restored, virtually rebuilt, at the cost of a hundred 
and forty thousand pounds, by the munificence of 
Mr. Guinness, a citizen of Dublin, who has made 
an immense fortune by the manufacture of the malt 
liquor called Dublin Stout. This is, I beheve, the 
only cathedral in Great Britain that has a modern 
interior. The floor and walls are crowded with 
monuments, among which Swift's, of course, arrests 
special attention. But I was more interested in 
the monument of Archbishop Whately, — a coflPer- 
shaped marble structure, with a full-length statue 
of him in a recumbent posture. 

I attended the daily morning service here. There 
were present, a canon who intoned the service, a 
choir of eighteen men and boys in dirty and ragged 
surplices who sang gloriously, two vergers in full 
official dress with gilded staves, and a congregation 
of ten persons, including myself, seven of which 
ten were s>*angers, and remained to inspect the 
building. This, so far as I had the opportunity of 
observing, is about the average of week-day attend- 
ance upon cathedral service in every part of Great 
Britain. Now I rejoice to have the devotional 
services of the church performed for ten, or three. 



CATHEDRAL SERVICES. 75 

or even for one hearer ; but this apparatus of daily 
worship is sustained at a cost for which there can 
be no justification on rational or Christian grounds, 
especially when, as in the case of St. Patrick's, there 
are unevang-elized thousands under the cathedral's 
shadow, whose redemption from ignorance and de- 
pra^dty would be an immeasurably more worthy 
offering than can rise from the lips of a mercenary 
choir. 



CHAPTER lY. 

ART. 

Superiority of Ancient and Mediaeval Art. — The Ministry of Art. — 
The Sistine Madonna. — Other Pictures at Dresden. — Titian's As- 
sumption of the Virgin. — Raphael's Transfiguration. — Rubens' 
Pictures. — Wood-carving. — Pulpit at Brussels. — The Dying Glad- 
iator. — Michael Angelo's Moses. — The Milan Cathedral. — Gold- 
smith's Work. — Reasons for the Decline of Art. 

"^ / One of the convictions forced upon a traveller 
in Europe is, that the arts of form and design at- 
tained their highest grade of perfection several 
centuries ago, and that no modern works can be 
brought into comparison with the ancient and 
mediaeval. It is common, but unjust, to speak with 
emphatic contempt of American art. I am inclined 
to think that, as regards artists now living, our 
country would bear a not unfavorable comparison 
with the most cultivated nations of Europe. I 
never saw a poorer collection of paintings than one 
containing works of living artists at Dresden, with- 
in a few rods of the world-famed gallery. '£p[n the 
Louvre, Luxemburg, and Versailles palaces there 
are several acres of canvas, which, I am sure, could 
have been fully as well covered in Boston or New 



THE DIVINE ELEMENT IN ART. 77 

York as in Paris. Of the sculptors who are now 
enjoying a liigh reputation in Rome and in Flor- 
ence, there are Americans who are regarded as 
second to none. At Rome, where the very stones 
might be expected to cry out against an artistical 
deformity, there is now building a Church of St. 
Paul, nearly as large as St. Peter's, sumptuous be- 
yond all precedent, its materials so precious as to 
make its pavements of veined and variegated mar- 
ble look mean, which yet is true to no idea or 
sentiment, is immense without being great, hand- 
some without being beautiful, exquisite in detail 
and in finish, but wholly unimpressive, — in fine, 
very much such an edifice as a plain New England 
carpenter would erect, if you told him to build a 
meeting-house four or five hundred feet long, and 
gave him marble, porphyry, and alabaster instead of 
pine-lumber, and portraits in mosaic instead of paint 
for the walls. 

I rejoice to recognize, not so much human 
genius, taste, and culture, as the Divine inspiration 
in art. Not alone in mountain, waterfall, lake, and 
river has God wrought. We see Him no less in 
dome and pillar, frieze and cornice, in forms of 
beauty that grew under the patient toil of artists 
who built, and painted, and chiselled far better than 
they knew, and have left for the ages copies of 
thoughts and visions immeasurably transcending 
the models before them, — an ideal perfectness and 
Deauty which had no earthly prototypes. More- 



78 ART. 

over, as the Divine inspiration, attested by miracle, 
and made availing for the religious culture of com- 
ing generations, had its peculiar epochs not to be 
repeated, so is it with the gifU — I use the word 
significantly — which create preeminence in the 
arts. And I think we can see why it was fittino; 
that such gifts should have been conferred on ruder 
ages than ours. The more advanced stages of 
progress can be best realized by the agency of the 
voice and the pen ; while in earlier periods, grand 
and beautiful forms, vast cathedrals, marble glow- 
ing with the Promethean fire, pictures that were 
gospels for men's faith and reverence, had the very 
same mission which now belongs to the written and 
spoken word. These master-works of art were 
God's ministers for inteneratino- the rude hearts of 
fierce and wild men ; for bowing in adoration the 
stubborn necks and stiff knees which no inferior 
power could have bent ; for shaping the gentler 
virtues ; for infusing the amenities and charities of 
domestic and social life ; for nourishino; the verv 
faith which no longer needs, but perhaps too rudely 
spurns their aid, 

I cannot here separate the Divine from the hu- 
man ; and if we praise God in those heights and 
depths of infinite power and wisdom in which He 
has wrought alonv. , all the more should we praise 
Him in and for the great creators, whose genius was 
kindled by His own breath, whose archetypes lay 
in the treasury of His own beauty-teeming spirit, 



THE MINISTRY OF ART. 79 

whose work was wrought in patterns shown them 
from above. 

Most of all have I felt the presence of this Di- 
vine element in tlie great pictures that are shrines 
of pilgrimage for travellers from the whole civilized 
world. Their mission is all Godward and Christ- 
ward. I spoke of them as gospels, and they do re- 
hearse to their beholders now their several portions 
of the Redeemer's life and aspects of His character, 
with a vividness and powder which words cannot 
approach. But if they are fresh evangels, with 
a vivifying force else unexperienced, to those who 
have always had the sacred record in their hands, 
what must they have been when the Scriptures 
were a sealed book to the multitude, and the re- 
demption-story was published only through these 
wonderful creations ? It is worthy of our grateful 
acknowledgment that the inspiration of art runs 
parallel with revelation, and culminates in the great 
moments of sacred history, so that the highest office 
of human genius has been the interpretation of 
the Divine Word, — of the Word that " was made 
flesh, and dwelt among men." 

I am conscious of the impossibility of adequately 
describing the great works of which I have spoken ; 
nor yet can engravings or photographs enable one 
to anticipate the joy of seeing and of having seen 
them. I can compare it only to the creation of a 
new sense, and of an entirely new class and range 
of sensations through its ministry. 



80 ART. 

It seems to me that there can be but one voice 
as to the preeminence of the Sistine Madonna at 
Dresden over all other pictures. The Virgin with 
the infant Saviour in her arms is represented as 
standing on luminous clouds, in a light at once in- 
tense and soft, — with a countless multitude of 
angel-faces in the background, as if in obedience to 
the command, " Let all the angels of God worship 
Him." Beneath, at her right hand, kneels the 
Pope, St. Sixtus, an old man, with a face expres- 
sive equally of awe and of loving reverence, — his 
tiara lying on the ground at his feet. On the other 
side kneels St. Barbara, — her eyes cast down as if 
dazzled by excess of glory, and her beautiful coun- 
tenance indicative of rapt devotion. At the bot- 
tom of the picture are two child-angels — their forms 
but half-revealed — whose faces cannot have been 
copied from the fairest of the children of men ; but 
if the spirits nearest the eternal throne have visible 
forms, one would almost think that Raphael must 
have been prepared for his work by being caught 
up into the third heaven. Where everything is 
wonderful, what amazes me most is the expression 
of the eyes of each member of the group. The 
Virgin's eyes are those of a happy mother, yet with 
a prescience of far-off sorrow, — full, beaming, glad- 
some, yet with a slight but indelible touch of pen- 
siveness. St. Barbara's eyes are those of a beat- 
ified spirit, crowded, whelmed and dazed by the 
multitude and richness of heavenly visions and ex- 



THE SISTINE MADONNA. 81 

periences. The old Pope looks entranced and 
overwhelmed, and in his eye trembles the Nunc 
dimittis. The eyes of the little cherubs are so 
broad and bright that they appear to be looking in 
every direction at once ; they seem to j)ierce the 
beholder's very soul, yet all the while they are 
turned intently heavenward. They are eyes which 
we feel can never be for an instant closed. They 
are brimming over with joy ; they are full of praise. 
One can think only of the spirits that cease not, 
day and night, to cry, " Holy, holy, holy Lord God 
of Sabaoth." But the eyes of the infant Jesus, — 
how can I describe them ! In everything else He 
is a human child, thus in striking contrast with the 
infant cherubs below. His eyes, too, are those 
of a human child, and yet it seems as if they 
already looked through immensity and eternity. 
Such knowing eyes, yet not piercing, but self-con- 
tained ; sweet too, full of loveliness. If He in His 
tender years gave presage of what He should be, 
we must conceive of Him just as Raphael has 
painted Him. The enjoyment of this picture is 
well worth the double Atlantic voyage. I have fed 
upon it ever since I saw it. There is not a waking 
half-hour, during which it does not reproduce itself 
in sight-like reminiscence. Yet more, I feel as if 
this picture will, for my life long, stand between me 
and that coarse, unappreciative rationalism of our 
time, which seems to find an especial joy in elim- 
inating the Divine element from the birth and 
(j 



82 ART. 

infancy of our Lord. It is an argument to the 
reason and the understanding, no less than to the 
aesthetic nature ; for surely a mode of manifes- 
tation, which, in its artistic guise, thus lifts the soul 
into an ecstasy of praise and adoration, cannot be 
unworthy of the Divine wisdom and love. 

There is, in the Dresden Gallery, another remark- 
able Madonna, by Holbein. It was painted to the 
order of one Jacob Meyer, burgomaster of Basle, 
to commemorate the restoration of a sick child to 
health, as was supposed, through the intercession of 
the Virgin. The burgomaster, his wife, his wife's 
mother, and his daughter are introduced, all kneel- 
ing before the Virgin. It is said that they were all 
portraits from life ; and for a more dowdy-looking 
family the artist might have searched the Continent 
in vain. There is, however, in the father's face, 
coarse and heavy as it is, a look of earnest suppli- 
cation, such as I have sometimes witnessed in the 
profoundly devout, in their crises of severest need ; 
and his lifted eyes glow intently with loving and 
admiring faith. The Virgin stands, superbly at- 
tired and crowned, with a countenance full of in- 
eflPable compassion. She has put down her own 
child, and has taken into her arms the poor, lank, 
wasted, almost dying child, for whom the group are 
praying ; and a little son of the burgomaster has 
risen partly from the kneeling posture, to play with 
the infant Jesus. The picture is full of contrasts, 
— the transcendent beauty of the Virgin, blending 



TITIAN'S PICTURE OF THE TRIBUTE-MONEY. 83 

at once queenly majesty, a mother's tenderness, and 
the surpassing sanctity belonging to the mother of 
Jesus, with the almost painful uncomeliness of the 
family; the round, rosy, healthy, gleeful form and 
countenance of the Christ-child, with the wan frame, 
pinched face, and skeleton hands of the sick child ; 
the profound gravity of the father and the females 
of the group, with the mirth, frolic, absolute rogu- 
ery of the little boy, who can think of nothing but 
the beautiful child he is playing with. 

Next to these pictures, I saw none in the Dres- 
den Gallery that interested me so much as Titian's 
picture of the Saviour and the Tribute-money, This 
is, and was meant to be, unique as a specimen of 
artistical handwork. Even on examining; it with 
a strong microscope, it is impossible to trace the 
marks of the brush, and the colors look as if they 
had grown on the canvas, as they grow on the pet- 
als of the lily. But the great charm lies in the 
two faces. That of the Pharisee who brink's the 
denarius, is perfect in its kind, expressive of low 
cunning in every line and angle and rounding of the 
countenance. Though no representation of the 
Saviour's face can ever seem fully adequate, yet this 
picture contains and suggests more of the strength 
and majesty of His character than, had I not seen 
it, I should have supposed capable of artistical ex- 
pression. The countenance is not only calm and 
self-collected, sweet and gentle ; but it bears the 
tokens of immeasurable superiority over the Phari- 



84 ART. 

see, even with his own weapons and on his own low 
plane. It bespeaks one who is equally at home on 
earth and in heaven, — equally versed in the mole- 
paths of human guile and treachery and in the way 
of the upright, — one whom no wiles can betray 
into an utterance or a look not in sacred harmony 
with His teachings and His mission among men. 

In this same gallery is to be seen the original of 
Correggio's Magdalen Reading, with which the 
common engravings have made us familiar. No 
words can express the exquisiteness of the tints in 
this work, and the perfectness of the chiaro-oscuro^ 
as if the sun itself had brooded over the finished 
picture long enough to fix its light and the corre- 
sponding shadows there ; while the face is, as it 
should be, young, beautiful, witching, yet with the 
abstracted, introspective air of one who has taken 
her farewell of the world, and is henceforth the 
bride of Heaven. 

But I must not linger at Dresden. The most 
noteworthy picture in Venice is Titian's Assump- 
tion, or ascension to heaven, of the Virgin, — one 
of the accredited myths of the Romish Church, and 
a favorite subject of mediaeval art. This picture 
is remarkable mainly for its coloring. It may be 
safely said that it could have been painted by no 
man but Titian, and nowhere but in Italy. In his 
colors there is an indescribable charm. They not 
only arrest, but usurp the attention, blunt the crit- 
ical acumen, make one unaware of the details of 



TITIAN S ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN. 85 

form and figure, incapable of detecting blemishes, 
even when he knows that they exist. Then too, 
every scene, group, or figure that he paints is bathed 
in an Italian sky, about which let me say a word in 
passing. It is often asked, Can there be anything 
in Italy to be compared with our autumnal sun- 
sets? I answer, No, — not to be compared with 
them, because in every way unlike. The Italian 
heavens are less splendid, less brilliant than ours, 
have less diversity of coloring. All their tints are 
a lighter or a deeper azure, or such hues as might 
naturally melt into this pervading azure. But the 
term sky-hlue acquired for me in Italy a meaning 
which it never had before. I no longer wondered 
that, in the Latin classics, every person and thing 
that is gloriously beautiful is liable to be called 
cerulean. Then there is always in the atmosphere 
a delicious haze, translucent indeed, so that objects 
can be seen at a very great distance, — light and 
thin too, so as to make the very air more intensely 
ethereal, — yet robing the entire panorama, the 
hills, and waters, and clouds, and stars, in its own 
azure gala-dress, than which Paradise can offer none 
more enchanting. It is this atmosphere which gives 
tone to Titian's pictures, and in the Assumption of 
the Virgin it is intensified, as it should be, worthily 
to represent so great a miracle. In the transcen- 
dently luminous clouds through which she is rising, 
in the drapery that wraps her form, in the light 
which from the central figure is radiated over the 



86 ART. 

whole group, I recognized the tints which I had ad- 
mired in that same morning's sunrise, and the 
hackneyed figure of dipping the pencil in the sun- 
beams, seemed a metaphor no longer. 

The Gallery of the Vatican at Rome contains 
comparatively few pictures ; but, unlike the others, 
it affords room to none but master-works. Among 
these, I cannot conceive that any one should fail to 
give the precedence to Raphael's Transfiguration, 
— his last work, not quite finished when his hand 
was arrested by death, and hung over his bier at 
his funeral. It presents the scene on the mountain, 
and that at its foot, simultaneously, — the Saviour 
floating in fleecy clouds between Moses and Elias, 
with His awe-stricken companions at His feet ; and 
below, the multitude gathered about the epileptic 
boy as he writhes in agony,- — his father, mother, 
sister, each in look and action indicating the rela- 
tionship, — the disciples perplexed and dismayed 
by the demand made on their healing power, — the 
Jews around them, sneering at their discomfiture. 
There is not, in the whole group, a face which does 
not fully define itself, and the beholder is drawn 
into the most intense sympathy with the distressed 
family, longs for the Saviour to emerge from " the 
excellent glory," and listens with the inward ear 
for the shout so soon to go up from the assembly 
beneath, " God hath visited and redeemed His peo- 
ple." This work has been criticised as lacking 
unity, — as being two pictures on the same canvas. 



RUBENS. 87 

To me it does not seem so. The two portions be- 
long together, are part and parcel, each of the 
other. The most impressive and touching feature 
of the gospel narrative is the Saviour's plunging 
at once from the splendor and joy of the heavenly 
communion into the wild confusion and bitter an- 
g lish that awaited His descent and craved His lov- 
ing ministry ; and in the picture there is, to my eye, 
no break, no harsh contrast, but a perfectly natural 
transition from the celestial glory to the human suf- 
fering and sorrow for whose relief it was kindled. 

Not to dwell longer on the Italian painters, I 
will ask my readers to go with me to Antwerp, and 
look at the world-famous pictures of Rubens. The 
works of Rubens are more numerous than those of 
any other of the great painters, and are to be found 
in every gallery in Europe. He must have often 
painted hastily and carelessly, and many of his 
pictures have nothing but his name to recommend 
them. He had two wives, both of them stout, 
coarse, blow^zy-looking women, of a low type of 
sensual beauty, and they seem to have been his 
perpetual study ; for we find one or the other of 
them disfiguring almost every one of his groups. 
But, in his sacred themes, his aesthetic nature seems 
to have taken on a refinement and delicacy which 
we can hardly trace in his other works ; and not 
even Raphael brings before us the great moments 
of the Saviour's life wdth profounder feeling or ef- 
fect. In the church of Notre Dame, formerly the 



88 ART. 

Cathedral of Antwerp, are the great pictures of the 
Elevation of the Cross, and the Descent from the 
Cross. Each of these occupies a space about twelve 
feet square, and each has, connected with it, two 
side-pieces of about the same height and half the 
width, — - those of the former being the Crucifixion 
of the two Thieves, and the Women at the Cross, — 
those of the latter, the Meeting of the Virgin Mary 
and Elizabeth, and the Presentation of the Infant 
Jesus to Simeon in the Temple. These pictures 
are on wood, which Rubens preferred to canvas, and 
which, certainly, in his use of it, showed its superi- 
ority, and justified his choice. 

The Elevation of the Cross represents Jesus as 
already fastened to the cross, which His execution- 
ers are lifting to an upright position. The painter 
seems to have thrown his whole artistical genius 
into the faces of the executioners, and if subjects 
had come up from Pandemonium to sit to him, 
these might have been their likenesses. The 
wretches are made all the more fiend-like, in con- 
trast with the blended terror and pity of the women 
in the side-piece. There is the Virgin Mother, 
uniting the firmness of an assured faith with the 
profoundest awe and grief. There is her mother, St. 
Anna, an old, shrivelled woman, with the sharpest 
angles in her face, looking as if the climax of hor- 
ror had been reached, yet as if she, for the sake 
of the younger women with her, must not utterly 
give way to her sorrow. Then there is a young 



MASTER-WORKS OF RUBENS. 89 

mother letting lier inflmt drop from her bosom, and 
falHng back as m a deathhke swoon, — with several 
other figures, all equally expressive of the emo- 
tions of the scene. 

The Descent from the Cross represents the dis- 
ciples and the faithful women taking our Saviour's 
lifeless body down from the cross, — the men hav- 
incr mounted on ladders so as to let down the head 
and the upper portion of the body, while the women 
are helping the apostles in sustaining the precious 
burden as it approaches the ground. In this won- 
derful picture there are two chief points of interest. 
One is the perfectness with which death is painted, 
and this, not only in the face, but in every part 
of the flaccid form, so that there is not a limb or 
an angle of the body, which, if all the rest were 
covered up, would not speak of death. It is the 
more touching, because the Saviour's countenance 
resembles so closely that, in the other picture, with 
the omission of all lifelike expression, that it sug- 
gests all that was there before life was extinct. 
The other striking feature is the intense tenderness 
portrayed in the group busy about the cross. This 
is seen, not in the faces only, but in posture, hand, 
and movement, — their looks and gestures show- 
ing how anxious they are that the body shall sus- 
tain no rude touch or jar, and how profound are 
both their reverence and their grief. 

The execution of these pictures is fully adequate 
to their conception. The coloring is soft and mel- 



90 ART. 

low with age, "svliile the tints are as fresh and vivid 
as if they had been painted yesterday. 

In another church in Antwerp is the Flagella- 
tion of Jesus, by Rubens, a most painful theme, so 
lifelike in its rendering as to make one feel, as we 
cannot possibly feel in reading the narrative, the 
horrible indignity and outrage ; but this is more 
than redeemed by the godlike meekness and gen- 
tleness in the Saviour's countenance, as if the 
Divine in Him shone out only the more resplen- 
dently from the lowest depth of His humiliation. 

There is at Brussels a picture of Rubens, which 
impressed me as fully equal, in every trait of sur- 
passing excellence, to those in Antwerp. It is the 
Via Dolorosa, the Way to Calvary. It represents 
the moment when, Jesus having fallen under the 
burden of the cross, it is forced upon Simon of Gy- 
rene. The Saviour is in the attitude of one who 
has just fallen forward, and has thrown out His 
hands to save Himself, too weak to rise without as- 
sistance ; while one of several women in the crowd 
is tenderly wiping His brow, the others are looking 
on with pity and dismay, and the Jews behind are 
scowling with malice and rage. The Saviour's 
face expresses the keenest suffering, yet mingled 
with sweet patience and resignation, and with a 
look of gratitude, which seems a Divine benediction, 
directed to the woman bending over Him. Her face 
is hardly less remarkable, blending adoring rever- 
ence with the tenderest compassion, and though 



CARVING IN WOOD. 91 

devoid of anger, yet flushed with a vivid sense of 
foul indignity and wrong. Nowhere have I heheld 
a picture of any scene in the Saviour's life which 
entered so profoundly into my soul, and so became, 
as it were, a part of my own being. 

But it is not my intention to confine myself to 
pictures. There is another art, deserving our pass- 
ing notice, of which Belgium furnishes by far the 
most remarkable specimens, namely, that of carving 
in wood, — now a mere handicraft, but, for a sea- 
son, elevated in Bel^^ium and Holland into one of 
the fine arts, and holding a position not one whit 
beneath the more ambitious members of the sister- 
hood. Of the capacity of this mode of representa- 
tion, I may give my readers some idea by describing 
a pulpit in the principal church in Brussels. The 
structure is a huge mass of carved oak, without a 
finger's breadth that does not form part of the de- 
sign. The trunk and body of the pulpit represent 
the Fall of Man, while the portion above the ros- 
trum tells the story of Redemption, so that we have 
Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained in one. The 
base of the structure is the garden of Eden, — a 
cluster of large trees laden with the most luxuriant 
foliage and fruit. These trees are densely peopled 
with beasts and birds of almost life size, — such as 
a monkey munching an orange, a squirrel cracking a 
nut, a peacock with full-spread fan, a cock in the 
attitude of crowing, an eagle perched on a solitary 



02 ART. 

branch. In front of this scene, as if just leaving 
it, are Adam and Eve in their " coats of skins : '' 
Eve vv^ith the fatal apple in her hand; Death, in 
skeleton guise, shaking his long, fleshless fingers 
over her ; and the angel with the flaming sv^ord, 
hovering in the rear. Behind the rostrum is a cru- 
cifix, with Faith and Hope beside it. Over the 
sounding-board is a queenly image of the Virgin 
Mary, supporting the infant Jesus as He is just 
learning to walk, and his naked little foot is laid on 
the head of an immense monster, half serpent, half 
crocodile, whose frame seems quivering with agony 
under the touch predestined for his destruction. 
Around them are various angel forms, one of which 
is letting down the golden chain that is to draw 
man heavenward. In the only place where there 
is room for an inscription, these words stand in let- 
ters of gold, Ave Maria mutans Evce Nomen ; or, in 
English, The Ave addressed to Mary is but the 
name of Eve (^Uva) reversed. I sat under this 
pulpit during a Sunday morning's high mass, and 
it was to me prayer, anthem, sermon, and, most of 
all, benediction. I could attend to nothing else. 
Indeed, the ritual going on in the church, how- 
ever significant to the initiated, was to me devoid 
of meaning and interest ; but for once I found 
''tongues in trees," and more came into my soul 
from that clump of trees, than could have found ut- 
terance by the tongue of man, however eloquent. 
Must not such a work have been to the rude 



THE DYING GLADIATOR. 93 

minds of earlier generations, a perpetual instructor 
and monitor of things Divine, endowed with a di- 
dactic power far beyond any homily that priest or 
monk could have droned from its inclosure ? 

Sculpture, in general, has less power over the 
emotional nature than painting; yet there are 
works of the chisel whose mere presence in a city 
or a land, would, of itself, be a refining and elevating 
force of incalculable momentum. Among the many 
statues which, in more or less perfect preservation, 
have come down to us from remote antiquity, there 
is none, as it seems to me, to be compared for 
expression and effect with that called the Dying 
Gladiator. Whether it is rightly so called, it is 
impossible to determine. All that we are certain 
of is that it represents a young man who has been 
engaged in a conflict of arms, and is dying of his 
wounds. He wears a collar, which may denote a 
captive obliged to fight at his master's will, or it 
may denote a Gaul ; for the Gallic warriors all 
wore collars. The face bears not a trait of anger 
or vindictiveness, but indicates a native nobleness 
of spirit, calm and firm endurance, and, at the 
same time, profound sensibility. In two words, 
its expression is manly tenderness ; and this 
is so inwrought in the marble, that no living 
countenance in the death-agony could call forth 
deeper sympathy or warmer admiration. Withal 
there is, in the eyes, that which inevitably suggests 



94 ART. 

the id(!a of one dying on a foreign soil, and dwell- 
ing in his last thoughts on home and the friends 
from whom he is forever separated.^ 

The master-work of mediseval sculpture is Michael 
Angelo's Moses. This represents the great law- 
giver, seated as in the presence of the hosts of 
Israel, giving them the law which he has received 
on Mount Sinai. The figure is colossal, massive, 
of tlie most majestic aspect ; the beard hanging in 
immense curls below the waist, the arms vast 
masses of corrugated muscle, the whole form be- 
tokening unparalleled strength, hardihood, and 
prowess. Saint, sage, seer, ruler, warrior, — all 
are united in look, mien, and attitude. No other 
personage in history could have given his name to 
this statue ; but it fulfils every condition of a 
statue of Moses, and epitomizes his years of physi- 
cal training in the deserts of Midian, his holy vigils 
on the mountain, his kingly place and ofiice among 
men. One singular feature is a pair of horns pro- 
trudino; fi^om the brow. This was in accordance 
with a mistranslation from the Hebrew of the book 
of Exodus, perpetuated in the Latin Vulgate, — 
the only Scriptures to which the artist had access. 
The face of Moses, in our translation, is rightly 
said to have shone when he came down from the 
mountain ; in the Vulgate, it is said to have been 
horned. In other hands these horns would have 

1 " Sternitur infelix alieno volnere, coelumque 
Adspicit, et dulcis moriens reminiscitiir Argos." 



THE CATHEDRAL OF MILAN. 95 

been a deformity, and they are so in miniatui'e 
copies of the Moses. But, in the original, they are 
what the horn always is in the symbolism of the 
Old Testament, — a token of power, intensifying 
the massiveness of the brow, and giving the last 
touch of completeness to the heaven-breathed vigor 
and energy of him who must ever remain unequalled 
amoncr the children of men. 

I shall give here but a single specimen of eccle- 
siastical architecture, and it shall be the Cathedral 
of Milan, which seems to me the most impressive 
of all the great churches of Europe. It is nearly 
five hundred feet long, more than three hundred 
and fifty feet high to the top of the colossal, gilt, 
star -crowned statue of the Virgin which sur- 
mounts the spire, and more than a hundred and 
fifty feet from the floor to the upper eaves. It is 
of white marble, in part slightly discolored by time, 
but at a little distance, of a pure and dazzling white. 
It has a mosaic floor of a very rich pattern, and 
a ceihng of fretted stone-work, which looks from 
the floor as fine and delicate as the most skilfal 
carving in ivory. There are five aisles, separated 
jfrom one another by four rows of clustered col- 
umns, their capitals richly carved and adorned with 
Btatuaiy. The nave has three stories, — the cen- 
tral aisle having rows of windows at a very great 
height ; the aisles adjacent to it forming a clear- 
story with its own tiers of windows ; while the long 



96 ART. 

windows which give the principal light belong to 
the outer aisles. The exterior has a somewhat 
Saracenic aspect. It shoots up in unnumbered pin- 
nacles, each pinnacle surmounted by a statue of 
apostle, martyr, or saint, — the martyrs all bearing 
])alms. Every niche that can be so filled, is occupied 
by human or angelic figures ; w^hile from the angles 
of the several roofs, peer out gargoyles of strange 
aspect, eagles' heads, dragons, nondescript mon- 
sters. The statues number more than three thou- 
sand. They are all of life size ; all of the most 
perfect finish, and many of them by world-famous 
sculptors. One may ascend almost to the top of 
the highest tower ; and, as I looked down from the 
three successive roofs and fi*om the landing-places 
of still loftier staircases, the forest of pointed tur- 
rets, statuary, and carved work, like a peopled 
forest petrified, seemed even grander, more splen- 
did, more luculently Divine than the glorious view 
in the not very remote distance, of Mont^ Rosa 
with its vicinage of snow-crowned Alps, which 
can nowhere else be seen in such peerless vastness 
and brilliancy. I said more luculently Divine; for 
what can be more fully fraught with the Divine 
than the inspiration of human art? And while 
the pencil and the chisel may lend themselves to 
more various and richer forms of beauty, and may 
awaken profounder emotions of love and sympathy, 
the sublimity of art culminates in these vast mediae- 
val temples, in which we behold man's least finite 
copy of the infinite. 



THE DECLINE OF ART. 97 

I might, did my proposed limits permit, add il- 
lustrations of the ministry of art from the golden 
altars, and the numerous specimens, still extant, of 
an ability and skill which gave to Benvenuto 
Cellini and other illustrious croldsmiths of his aoi;e, 
a world-wide and w^orld-endurins fame. While 
in mechanical finish we can imao;ine nothino; more 
perfect than these works, in conception, grouping, 
perspective, and all the details of complicated de- 
sign, they manifest a transcending genius, and a 
wealth of resources which commands our highest 
admiration. In this department, originality has 
ceased. The most hopeful movement of our own 
day has been a retrogradation to Etruscan forms. 
Some slight novelty of style or pattern may, indeed, 
from time to time be introduced, in a pitcher, salver, 
or vase ; but no man who has an epic in his heart, 
would now think of chasing it in gold or silver. 

In the seeming miscellaneousness of this chapter, 
I have had a unity of purpose. I have wished to 
show what art has done and can do for the culture 
of thought, sentiment, and character, for the de- 
velopment and elevation of human nature, for the 
growth of faith, worship, and devotion. But how 
are we to account for the stagnation and decline 
of art in these latter days ? I answer that art has 
ceased to advance, nay, in some departments has 
retrograded, mainly because the needs, the de- 
mands, and the receptivity of civiKzed man now 



98 ART. 

are essentially different from those of earlier centu- 
ries. Genius includes impulse no less than capac- 
ity. It cannot remain as " a fire in the bones," 
but it will somehow utter, that is, outer itself, put 
itself forth, get its grasp on the imagination, senti- 
ment, faith, enthusiasm of the race. It is, in a 
certain sense, universal. Though it may have one 
chief mode of self-utterance, the others are open 
to its choice. But its tendency is to choose the 
mode of utterance, by which it can best reach the 
mind of its age. When royalty could not write, 
and few noblemen could read, and those mysteries 
which, according to Dogberry, come by nature, 
were confined to the cloister, genius, of necessity, 
seldom sought expression in books ; nor yet, except 
in times of fierce political tumult, was there an 
open arena for popular eloquence. Form and color 
were the chief modes of communication between 
the master-minds and their contemporaries whom 
they were born to teach and train and elevate. Tlie 
poet, the maker^ would he enrich the world by his 
creations, was constrained to paint, or chisel, or 
carve, or build them, so few could read or hear 
them, were they clothed in measure or song. 

The art of those ages was not, however, of spon- 
taneous growth, any more than is the higher litera- 
ture or eloquence of the present time. Genius is 
not the capacity of producing without toil, but the 
capacity of working greatly and gloriously. Among 
the most interesting objects of curiosity in the Eu- 



GENIUS AND CULTURE. 99 

ropean art -centres are the studies and tentatlvo 
sketches of the great masters, which show that 
they passed through the processes of careful train- 
ing, that eye and hand were thoroughly educated 
for their work, and that they had learned, as the 
condition precedent of their fame, 

" To scorn delights, and live laborious days." 

By like culture, the genius which now puts before 
the mind of the age the images of things unseen — 
gorgeous, beautiful, grand — in words that make 
oar hearts leap and glow and burn, might have 
learned to place the same images before the out- 
ward eye. Genius, like physical force, is one and 
convertible. God gives its power ; the age, its aim 
and object. 



CHAPTER V. 

SWITZERLAND. 

Swiss Roads. — Inns. — People. — Basle. — Lucerne. — The Kigi. — 
Lake Lucerne. — Pass of St. Gotthard. — The Furca. — Glacier of 
the Rhone. — ^The Grimsel Pass. — Lake of Brienz. — Falls of the 
Giessbach. — Interlachen. — The Jungfrau. — Swiss Music. — Bern. 
— Geneva. — Lake of Geneva. — Lausanne. — Baths of Saxon. — 
Ruins. 

I PROPOSE in this chapter to give some sketches 
of Swiss travel. But before enterino; on the see- 
nery, let me say a few words of the roads and the 
people. 

The Swiss railways are well-built, well-stocked, 
and well-managed, making somew^iat slower time 
than the English and French, but much faster than 
the German railways, which realized for me, as 
nothing else ever did, the old philosophical defini- 
tion of motion as a series of rests. Steam-carriase 
must, however, be abandoned in the wildest and 
grandest regions, and forms, therefore, but a small 
part of the tourist's experience. 

The carriage-roads in the mountainous districts 
of Switzerland, are the most magnificent specimens 
of engineering that I have ever seen or can con- 



i / 



THE MOUNTAIN ROADS. 101 

ceive of. Some of them attain a hio-lier altitude than 
the summit of Mount Washington, where the snow 
never wholly melts, and the summer is but a molli- 
fied winter. A mountain is generally climbed by 
a series of inclined planes, w^hich terrace its face 
obliquely, and are just as steep as can be safely de- 
scended with locked wheels and the constant use 
of a brake. Such roads are sli elves hewn in or 
built upon the mountain-side, often with precipices 
of thousands of feet above and below. They are 
precisely wide enough for the passing of two car- 
riages without collision, — the road-bed firmly laia 
and smoothly gravelled, and its outer margin 
guarded by a wall of solid masonry some four feet 
high. The several cantons keep these roads in ex- 
cellent order during the travelling season, charging 
no tolls, but remunerating themselves by the influx 
of foreign gold, which must, of necessity, bear a close 
proportion to the ease and security of travel. Of 
course the winter snows obstruct, and the spring 
rains gully these roads, so that they are sometimes 
impassable or dangerous ; and every season requires 
for them thorough and costly repairs. Good car- 
riages and careful drivers can be had everywhere 
at a moderate charge, always with an addition for 
backshish or Trinkgeld to the driver. 

There are many important routes, over which a 
wheeled carriage cannot pass. On these, in every 
case, as good bridle-paths as the nature of the 
ground will permit are maintained, and sure-footed 



102 SWITZERLAND. 

mules can always be hired. But an able-bodied 
man will generally prefer his own feet, and he can, 
at any station, procure for his baggage a trusty 
porter, who will serve him also as a guide and no- 
menclator, and who, under a back-load of fifty 
pounds, will lead him at as vigorous a pace as he 
can easily maintain. The stages w^hich a pedestrian 
will find it convenient to make, vary from ten to 
thirty miles ; and the pure, bracing mountain air 
renders foot- travelling much less wearisome than 
I have ever found it in quite extensive experience 
in New England. 

In the principal cities and towns, such as Bern, 
Interlachen, Lausanne, Geneva, the inns are hardly 
equalled, not surpassed in comfort and luxury any- 
where in the world. In the less important vil- 
lages, and especially at the mountain stations, there 
is much to be desired on the score of neatness and 
cleanliness ; but I found no place at which the table 
d'hote was not well served. 

The Swiss people are honest and intelligent, but 
dull and heavy-witted. Property is nowhere safer 
than among them. It is almost impossible to lose 
even the smallest article. Indeed, loss, could it 
occur, would often be great gain. Whatever a 
traveller leaves on his route is sure to be sent after 
him, but by such slow stages, that it may cost him 
more than it is worth by the time it reaches him. 

But if the people will not steal, they are sturdy 
and persistent beggars. All the children in a ham- 



HARD LOT OF THE SWISS WOMEN. 103 

let dog the traveller's footsteps with clamorous so- 
licitation ; and one can hardly pass a farm-house, 
however affluent in its surroundings, without hav- 
ing a hat or hand held out for alms. 

The Swiss are not neat. They are not offen- 
sively uncleanly in their persons. On Sundays and 
holidays, their gala attire — varying much in the 
different cantons — though sometimes grotesque, 
indicates great regard for personal appearance, and 
in some quarters, is even beautiful. On working 
days, the men are decently clad, and nothing can 
be more charmingly picturesque than the costume 
of the women at hay-making, — broad straw hats 
with bright ribbons, w^hite sleeves, and dark bod- 
ices. But they love to heap all the litter they can 
in and about their houses. I have been in cottages 
built with exquisite taste, and presenting at a dis- 
tance the most inviting aspect, which were not 
nearly so clean as a well-kept stable. Indeed, the 
cellar of a farm-house is generally used as a stable, 
and the smaller live stock have the unchecked lib- 
erty of the whole house. 

The women are subjected to a very great amount 
of severe out-of-door toil. In the cities, the street- 
sweepers are all women. All over the country, 
besides performing most of the agricultural labor, 
the women carry heavy burdens on frames or in 
baskets fitted to their backs, and the girls are inured 
to this task from very infancy. They thus acquire 
a uniformly stooping gait, as if born under the 



104 SWITZERLAND. 

curse written in one of the imprecatory psalms, 
*' Bow down their back always. " Yet the severity 
of their lot is due, not, as in Saxony and Austria, to 
the comparative degradation of women in the social 
scale, but rather to the brevity of the working sea- 
son, which compels all the members of a family to 
the maximum of effort, to provide for the long 
period of inaction. Over heights which no wheeled 
carriage can surmount, and at times when all at- 
tainable mules are required for the use of travel- 
lers, the human back is the only medium of trans- 
portation ; and if the women bear heavy burdens, 
the men bear still heavier. Many of them are 
employed as porters, carrying enormous articles of 
baggage, and frequently their feeble or indolent 
owners, to the summits of the highest mountains. 
Others take care of the herds that are pastured far 
up among the clouds, and bring down the products 
of these aerial dairies to the level of terrestrial 
markets. For all of them, too, the cutting and 
transportation of firewood alone, make a severe 
demand upon their strength. 

I will now give some of my remembrances of 
the country. I entered Switzerland by the way of 
Basle, a place lying on both sides of the Rhine, 
which rushes through the city with a noise like 
that of a mill-race. With a great deal else that 
is curious and attractive, I was most interested 
there in the numerous works and memorials of 



LUCERNE. 105 

Holbein, who passed there his boyhood and early 
manhood.^ 

I first found myself in the Switzerland of my life- 
long dreams, at Lucerne, a charming little city, on 
the river Reuss, at the point at which it enters 
Lake Lucerne. Arriving there late in the day, I 
watclied the sunset on the Alps. The snowy sum- 
mits w^ere first bathed in rose-tints, which slowly 
faded as the stars came out, till they gleamed in pure 
white, and shot forth rays that vied with the moon- 
beams on the quiet waters at their feet, and over 
the valleys in their deep shadows, I rose at early 
dawn, and there was not a vestige of the mountain 
panorama. At sunrise the veil began to part. 
Here and there a summit peered out of the ocean 
of undulating mist, then a few flecks of snow, green 
patches, and rough, craggy shoulders, from the 
mountain-sides. Then the mist, dispelled from the 
higher regions, lay in azure belts midway between 
the base and the crown of each separate Alp. 
Then it was cut into fillets and streamers, which 
slowly floated away and vanished. The lake is in- 
expressibly beautiful, — cruciform, with unnum- 
bered bays and inlets, with nooks of the richest ver- 
dure, with Mount Pilatus — stern, rugged, precip- 
itous — on the right of the city, and on the left, 
Rigi, a mass of variegated green, densely wooded, 
and dotted, for its whole height, with white farm- 

1 Holbein was born in Augsburg. 



106 SWITZERLAND. 

houses and chalets, that seem to ding to the moun- 
tain-side. 

I ascended Mount Rigi, and spent on its summit 
the last hours of daylight. Here, from the north 
to the west, covering three fourths of the entire 
view, is an ocean of Alps, looking almost as close 
together as the crests of billows in a storm, — many 
of them twice as high as that on which I stood, — 
many of them snow-crowned, with glaciers stretch- 
ing from peak to peak across immense ravines. On 
the north side the Rigi is precipitous, and at its 
foot lie the Lake of Zug and numerous smaller 
lakes, traceable in their entire outline, with the city 
of Zurich, the town of Schwytz, and many inter- 
vening villages and hamlets ; while beyond them, 
the horizon is bounded by lesser Alps, yet all high 
enough to be mountains of renown in any other 
land. The sun sank beneath our horizon long be- 
fore it ceased to shine on the distant hills, so that 
we had every possible variety of light and shadow, 
— the last sun-rays being broken into all the hues 
of the iris by one of the far-off snow-peaks. I 
stayed to see the mountains put on their night- 
clothes. Some wrapped themselves in thick black 
robes, — presage of the coming storm ; others, in a 
purple such as no Tyrian dye can ever have ap- 
proached ; others, in a pure white drapery hardly 
less radiant than the beams of the half-full moon ; 
while the snow-peaks slumbered with no other cov- 
ering than their day-dress, — they l)eing too cold 



HISTORICAL SCENES. 107 

for the moisture about them to assume the form of 
vapor. 
jj^ I had hardly been an hour in my chamber, when 
the rain fell in torrents, with eddying winds which 
made our hostelry a very cradle, but a cradle whose 
spasmodic rocking banished sleep. Suddenly there 
was a lull of the wind and rain. I arose, and put 
my head and hand out of my window. I could not 
see my hand. The mountain was wrapped in so 
dense a cloud, that I doubt whether I could have 
seen a light in the next window. Yet the cloud 
was so warm, so near the temperature of my own 
body, that my head and hand were not moistened 
by it. The storm was renewed toward morning, 
and I commenced my descent in a whirlwind of 
rain and driving mist, in which I could hardly see 
my mule's head. Soon the storm abated ; vistas of 
lake, rock, and forest appeared fitfully at intervals ; 
the sun — not yet shining on us — began to gleam 
from the distant mountains, making ghastly rents in 
their night-dresses ; then it came out full and 
warm on us, converting the raindrops into jewels, 
and making the grass greener than before, — and 
there is no grass, not even in Ireland, more in- 
tensely green than the Swiss, r 

That day's route carried us — first on the lake 
and then on land — by the most memorable spots 
in the history of Switzerland, — Tell's chapel, 
birthplace, monument, statue, Schiller's monument, 
the vale of Riitli where the Swiss Confederacy had 



108 SWITZERLAND. 

its birth, — all of tliem romantic sites, worthy of 
their associations. The lake scenery is rendered 
sublime by the surrounding Alps, while its waters 
assume forms of ever varying beauty ; and the 
quaint villages, hill-side cottages, and rustic chapels, 
always in spots which invest them with a wondrous 
charm, make the navigation a joy to be remembered 
for a life-time. 

I disembarked at Fluelen, and took the road 
which leads to the Pass of St. Gotthard, with the 
River Reuss constantly at my side. This river 
averages a descent of more than a hundred feet in 
a mile, so that its whole flow seems to be over falls 
and rapids, always noisy and impetuous. Its water 
is of deep green, with a crest of milky white. At 
the Devil's Bridge (Teufelsbriicke) is the prin- 
cipal fall of several hundred feet in height, through 
a chasm so wild, so terrific, so strewed with the 
debris of elemental conflicts in pre-adamite ages, 
that it might seem the rallying place for the infer- 
nal gods of some rude mythology. The road, 
rising by more gentle acclivities to Hospenthal, 
thence scales the mountain of St. Gotthard by a 
series of those wonderful terraces already described, 
till it reaches the height of eight thousand feet 
above the sea. At its summit I found deep snow- 
banks, so condensed by the impact of the summer's 
rains, that it was difficult to thrust a staff to the 
depth of more than two or three inches. 

From the St. Gotthard hospice I looked down 



THE GRIMSEL PASS. 109 

into Italy, and then returned to Hospenthal, whence 
I took the road to the Furca, — a mountain-ridge 
nine thousand feet high, between two peaks which 
rise Hke the tines of a fork, and give the pass its 
name. The road winds up the Galenstock. We 
gradually rose among the clouds, into the region of 
perpetual snow. At one time we had nothing but 
cloud and mist visible below us, the sinking sun 
sending up his broken rays through the mist in 
gold, violet, purple, and orange, while only snow- 
tipped pinnacles Avere seen above the clouds. We 
spent the night at the Furca inn, perhaps the high- 
est house in Europe, though two or three others 
contest that distinction with it on nearly equal 
terms. In the morning we descended to the 
Glacier of the Rhone, which, for hours of our zig- 
zag path, lay in full view beneath us, a vast sea 
of snow-covered ice — discolored by the detritus of 
the adjacent mountains — from which the river issues 
a slender, milky rivulet. 

From the Glacier I ascended the Grimsel Pass. 
The Grimsel Hospice is in a valley about six thou- 
sand feet high. Behind it are the See der Todten 
(Lake of the Dead), so called from a great battle 
that took place near it, and Grimsel Lake, in which 
the Aar has its rise. There is here a thin and 
scanty crop of grass, with many of our own familiar 
flowers, — the dandelion, the hawkweed, the but- 
tercup, and a very beautiful bluebell. Unnum- 
oered goats are pastured here, and at sunset crowd 



110 SWITZERLAND. 

around the hospice to be relieved of the burden of 
the day. Directly in front of the hospice, my 
hostess pointed out with evident satisfaction, among 
the multitudinous brotherhood of hoary summits, 
the honored name of Agassiz. 

The next morning I descended the Pass to 
Meiringen. The road — a mere bridle-path for 
sixteen miles — is close along the course of the 
Aar, with mountains from four to eight thousand 
feet high on either side ; and it looks as if the 
whole chain had been cleft for the little river to 
tumble through. And it does not flow ; it rushes, 
so that its sound, seldom a mere murmur, often a 
roar, never dies upon the ear. Sometimes there is 
just room for the river to pass, and for the road — 
hardly wide enough for two men to walk abreast — 
to creep along a rocky shelf at its side ; and then 
the valley widens sufficiently for a few farms to 
nestle under the hills. Sometimes there is a dell 
so deep and so heavily overarched by trees that it 
seems like the valley of the death-shadow ; and 
then, in a moment, the traveller emerges into the 
clear sunlight, gleaming gloriously from the snow- 
peaks and the cascades. The cascades are num- 
berless. They are never, for an instant, out of 
sight. Sometimes I could count ten or twelve with- 
in view at the same moment, issuing from the snow 
on the mountain-tops, and pouring down in sheets 
of chased silver into the river. 

The Falls of the Handeck on this route are en- 



THE LAKE OF BRIENZ. Ill 

tirely unique, and unutterably grand. The Han- 
deck, a pure, transparent mountain-torrent of great 
volume, is here precipitated more than two hun- 
dred feet, half of the way in an unbroken sheet, 
then broken by projecting points of rock into feath- 
er}^ spray. The Aar — like most of the Swiss riv- 
ers, of a whitish green — has here a considerable 
fall : and the two rivers meet at rio;ht anMes in 
mid-air, wreathe and twine their waters, with the 
most gorgeous intermingling of the transparent and 
the turbid stream, and plunge together into the 
abyss below. 

The mountains on this pass are generally cov- 
ered with trees and clothed with veo;etation as hio-h 
as plants can grow, and then shoot up in huge pin- 
nacles, or in sharp teeth, or in irregularly clustered 
pyramids, and often seem hewn into rude architec- 
tural forms, looking like ruined castles of antedilu- 
vian giants. 

Arrived at Meiringen, not a little foot-weary, I 
took a carriage to Brienz, and embarked in a dap- 
per little steamer upon the Lake of Brienz. I won- 
der that they did not call it Simmelsee (Lake of 
Heaven) ; for no one can see it and not think of 
the waters of Paradise. Emerald-green, with just 
the faintest ripple on its surface, surrounded by 
Alps of every form and tint, the snow-capped, the 
bald and bare, the toothed and jagged, the intensely 
green and verdant, with villages on the margin and 
straggling up the hill-sides, and single cottages 



112 SWITZERLAND. 

climbing to still higher altitudes, — I could have 
spent a summer on that deck without a moment's 
weariness. 

I landed at the mouth of the Giessbach, whose 
falls combine loveliness and grandeur to a degree 
in which they are rarely united, even in Switzer- 
land. The river here pours into the lake from a 
height of eleven hundred feet, over a stairway of 
seven nearly equal steps, — each separate cascade 
having, therefore, a greater altitude than that of 
Niagara. A steep path leads to the summit, and 
thence, and from a series of bridges thrown across 
the several cascades, the visitor can have an indefi- 
nite variety of views ; while only so much of the 
native forest is cut away as to open from each of 
the falls glimpses of those above and below. With 
these, however, are let in the most charming vistas 
of lake, mountain, and woodland. The whole sce- 
nery harmonizes in tone with the lake into which 
the river falls. The several cascades, though sur- 
rounded by a dense forest, lie singularly open to the 
sunlight, are clear, limpid, bright, with spray like 
showers of diamonds ; and the last leap into the lake 
is radiant to the eye and jubilant to the ear, as if 
there were conscious and ecstatic gladness in the 
mighty plunge. If we could imagine a waterfall 
in Eden, we might seek its type in the Giessbach ; 
nor would there be one terrific or sombre associa- 
tion to remind us of a Paradise laid waste. 

I reembarked for Interlachen, which, as its 



THE JUNGFRAU. 113 

name indicates, lies between the lakes of Brienz 
and Thun. This is a beautiful, even splendid city, 
created and sustained by the influx of summer tour- 
ists and residents, — a city of vast hotels and 
pensions^ magnificent pleasure-grounds, attractive 
bazaars, and halls for various amusements, — in fine, 
the great watering-place of Switzerland: by the pre- 
dominance of English guests assimilated very closely 
to Leamington and other fashionable English water- 
ing-places, while its environments make it more 
lovely than words can describe. 

I went thence to Lauterbrunnen, so called from 
the multitude of springs (^Brunneri) that have their 
issue here. It is a deep and slumberous valley, so 
deep that the shadows in it have a weird, fantastic 
look. On the longest day the sun does not rise 
here till seven o'clock, and on the shortest day sun- 
rise and sunset are not more than two hours apart. 
Yet the valley is verdant and fertile. Several 
beautiful cascades fall over its impending mountains, 
the most noted of which is the Staubbach (Dust- 
Brook), a fall of about a thousand feet, in which 
the water is so broken as to look for its whole 
height like a shower of finely pulverized silver. 

Hence I crossed the Wengern Alp, which, on its 
ascent and from its summit, brought me face to face 
with the Jungfi'au. It was, indeed, a most solemn 
interview. The Jungfrau (the maiden-mountain) 
towers in bare and bald sublimity from a ba'se about 
as high as the summit of the Wengern Alp, to an 



114 SWITZERLAND. 

altitude above it nearly equal to the height of that 
summit from the sea. Her head (or rather, her 
heads, for she has two chief heads, besides several 
smaller ones), and her neck dow^n to the waist, are 
covered with pure, dazzlingly white snow, and 
stripes of snow descend to the point where vegeta- 
tion beoins. Below the snow is an immense mass of 
brown rock, from which there stretch down into the 
valley numerous sheets of rocky debris, the scars 
and relics of frequent avalanches from her sides. 
No other mountain, not even Mont Blanc, has 
ever impressed me so profoundly as the symbol and 
shrine of the Creator's power and majesty. In its 
vastness, and its intense whiteness and brilliancy, 
it made me think continually of the " great white 
throne " in the Apocalypse. 

I descended to Grindelwald, — a little village, 
close upon the brink of an immense glacier, which 
every year approaches a few feet nearer the homes 
of its inhabitants. Here is a magnificent array of ice- 
needles and crystalline forms in boundless variety. 

On this route and on several others, I enjoyed 
most richly the mountain echoes from the Alpine 
horn, — an instrument as lono; as the man, longer 
than the boy, who plays it, from which a single 
strong, sweet note is cauofht bv and sent back from 
scores of Alps, first nearer, then more distant, till 
at length it dies away in the faintest whisper of 
melody. This was the only good Swiss music I 
heard. The national singing is a guttural yelping, 



BERN. 115 

to my ear very offensive. The people, however, 
seem proud of it, and it is one of their favorite forms 
of mendicancy, — those who will not purchase their 
songs being ready, perhaps, to pay double for their 
silence. 

My sojourn at Interlachen closed, I took an om- 
nibus to Neuhaus (so called when the old hotel of 
which the place consists w^as new), and embarked 
on the Lake of Thun, another Himmelsee, larger 
than the Lake of Brienz, equally picturesque, com- 
manding glorious views of the Jungfrau and her 
companions, and having on its shores numerous 
castles, villas, and hamlets. Landing at Thun, I 
went by rail to Bern, — the most grotesque of cit- 
ies, with more of mirthfulness and drollery in its 
architecture and its permanent features than I 
should have deemed possible but for the sight. Li 
the principal streets, the houses are built on arcades, 
thus affording the shelter of covered sidew^alks, 
which are lined throughout with shops, many of 
which are attractive from the indulgence of individ- 
ual caprice in- the arrangement, combination, and 
display of their contents. There are very numer- 
ous and copious fountains in the squares and at the 
street-corners, all of them adorned with statuary, 
and some with designs expressly adapted to promote 
laughter. Tne most ludicrous of all is the figure 
of an ogre in the act of devouring a child, with his 
pocket and girdle full of children in keeping for 
future use. Below^ him is a group of bears in 



116 SWITZERLAND. 

armor. The bear, the scutcheon of the city and the 
canton, appears everywhere, and in every possible 
guise, — at fountains, on pediments, over gateways, 
on the summits of towers. 

The clock-towers of Bern are among its curios- 
ities. Of these there are three, remarkable for 
quaintness and venerable for age. One of them 
not only receives special attention from strangers, 
but gathers under it, every hour in the day-time, a 
multitude of wonder-stricken children. In this a 
very complicated puppet-show is connected with 
every striking of the clock. A cock comes out, 
claps his wings, and crows twice before and once 
after the striking of the hour ; the figure of Time, 
with the usual insignia, turns an hour-glass, and 
keeps even rhythm with the clock-hammer by the 
movement of his jaws and of his scythe ; and a 
large troop of bears dance in pantomime. 

Besides the unconsuming bears to be found on 
every hand, the city sustains several huge living 
bears at the public expense, in a magnificent den, 
into which a municipal ordinance, solemnly pla- 
carded, forbids, under a heavy penalty, that any- 
thing except bread and fruit shall be thrown. 
Bread is daily thrown to them in such quantities as 
to attract myriads of sparrows that feed among the 
bears, and take promptly to their wings, when, at 
frequent intervals. Bruin rushes and snaps at them. 

The Cathedral in its present condition, seems 
adapted to minister to the appetite for the ludi- 



GENEVA. 117 

crous, here so tlioroughly catered for. It is well 
projiortioned and imposing in its exterior design, 
and the carving of the Last Judgment, with the 
Wise and Foolish Virgins, in its deeply recessed 
portal, is a work of surpassing merit. But the 
unfinished tower is covered with a tiled roof so 
gaudy, so ill-shaped, so mean, as to seem a bur- 
lesque of the building below. Behind the Cathedral 
is a terrace, once a churchyard, directly above the 
Aar, and from the height of a hundred feet pre- 
senting a most extensive range of scenery, of rich 
and varied beauty, which would be grand also, any- 
where but in Switzerland. 

Geneva was my next stage. This city lies, as 
my readers well know, at the point where " the 
arrowy Rhone " emerges from the Lake of Geneva. 
It is remarkable for the extent of its water-front, 
its best streets being built on the margin of the 
lake and on both sides of the river. It is a splen- 
did and sumptuous city, with some quaint streets 
and nooks, and many memorials of mediaeval men 
and events, but with a predominant air of newness, 
style, ostentation, and conventionalism. I was glad 
to see in the Cathedral — which has a grand and 
impressive exterior, and an interior prettily and ex- 
pensively, yet inadequately finished and furnished 
■ — the ancient pulpit in which Calvin preached ; and, 
in my heretical way of thinking, I was not unwill- 
ing that Calvin's pulpit should be an antiquity. 

One of the most curious sights in the city is the 



118 SWITZERLAND. 

army of washerwomen . For nearly a mile, boats, 
each about a hundred feet long, are moored close 
to the river-bank, and in these the women stand 
in as intimate juxtaposition as is consistent with 
the free use of their arms. Such a splashing as 
they make, and such a deafening din with their 
tongues ! If Nausicaa's washing-day was not un- 
worthy of Homer's song, the washers of Geneva 
surely deserve better commemoration than in my 
unambitious prose. 

The Lake of Geneva is not a Himmehee ; but for 
an earthly lake it has beauty enough to awaken an 
unutterable admiration and delight. It is reported, 
under favorable atmospheric conditions, to afford a 
transcendently fine view of Mont Blanc ; but 
though I crossed it in different directions, on two 
nearly cloudless days, the requisite conditions were 
not fulfilled in my experience. The lake is almost 
entirely surrounded by vine-growing slopes and 
hills, with ranges of mountains in the distance, and 
sometimes approaching the shore. -Its waters are 
of a deep blue. On its banks are some of the most 
beautiful cities and villages in Europe. 

The Castle of Chillon is on a rock a few feet from 
the eastern shore. It is a huge and massive pile 
of masonry, that looks as if it might yet weather 
twice the centuries that have passed over it, — 
gloomy and sombre, lighted by the narrowest pos- 
sible slits in the walls, — as dreary a prison as man 
could build, yet surrounded by gorgeous beauty. 



LAUSANNE. 119 

The beam still remains, from vyliicli the victims of 
tyranny and bigotry used to be suspended. 

Next to Geneva, Lausanne is the largest city on 
the lake. It is a city developed almost as much 
vertically as horizontally, — tunnels, bridges over 
deep ravines, and long fliglits of steps, leading to 
several successive stories of streets ; while straight 
lines are wholly abjured, and if one w^anted to go 
west, he would be most likely to effect his purpose 
by starting with his face toward the rising sun. 

The Cathedral, a venerable, low Gothic building, 
stands almost directly over the principal market, — 
a mean wooden staircase of more than a hundred 
steps leading from one to the other, and being, per- 
haps, the most frequented thoroughfare in the city. 
The Cathedral has a very beautiful interior, the 
aisles being separated by clustered columns of 
singularly fine proportions ; but, like several other 
similar edifices in Protestant cities, it illustrates the 
inexpediency of putting "new wdne into old bot- 
tles." The great continental cathedrals were all 
built for, and adapted to the exigencies of the 
Romish ritual, and Protestantism has no device by 
which it can stave ofi" associations of vacuity, drear- 
iness, and desolation, from these temples, in which 
the service of the living voice, the open ear, and 
the soul that craves no earthly medium of devotion, 
formed no part of the builder's purpose. Thus, 
while there is not a Protestant city in which I did 
not see, as I saw most emphatically in Lausanne, 



120 SWITZERLAND. 

ample evidence of the elevating power of a simpler, 
and, in my apprehension, a more genuine faith and 
worship, — in the cathedrals I always found my 
taste at variance with my profoundest convictions. 

In the Lausanne Cathedral, the chancel has been 
converted into a cemetery, and one large division 
of it is filled with monuments to English residents, 
who have died in the city. Among these is, per- 
haps, the most tasteless structure of the kind in 
Europe, erected by Sir Stratford Canning, then 
British n ' lister to Switzerland, in memory of his 
wife, who died shortly after her marriage. It is 
admirably well executed ; but it introduces Hermes 
and quite a numerous troop of Grecian divinities, 
as in attendance on the dead bride. 

From Lausanne I took the railway to Martigny. 
The route for many miles skirts the lake, and 
then passes into the Valley of the Rhone. At 
one point there is just room for the railway to turn 
the shoulder of a mountain, on rounding which, we 
came in view of the marvellously beautiful Fall of 
the Sallenche, which flows from the glacier of the 
Dent-du-Midi, a grotesque, tooth-shaped mountain, 
and falls into the Rhone, a broad sheet of foam. 
Martigny owes its prosperity chiefly to its being the 
usual starting-point for the mule or foot journey 
to Clmmouny. It is charmingly situated, in a tri- 
angular valley on the Rhone, surrounded by moun- 
tains. On the brow of a hill near the town is an 
old Roman fortress, so solidly built that, though 



THE BATHS OF SAXON. 121 

dismantled and roofless, it can hardly be termed a 
ruin. 

From Martigny I made an excursion to the 
Baths of Saxon, — one of the principal Swiss 
watering-places, — in dissipation, a humble copy of 
Baden-Baden. The waters are regarded as a spe- 
cific for cutaneous and rheumatic diseases ; but the 
gamblers far outnumber the invalids.^ It lies at 
the foot of a mountain which I ascended. Half- 
way to the summit I found a hamlet, which lives in 
my memory for the perfectness of a contrast which 
may be witnessed, in a good measure, in almost 
every Swiss village. It was, without exception, the 
filthiest place I ever saw ; w^hile several of the 
richest fountains of pure water were running en- 
tirely to waste, except that at one of them a woman 
was washing some hopelessly dirty linen. Is it 
that this, like so many other good gifts of Provi- 
dence, fails of appreciation because of its unstinted 
abundance ? 

Pursuing my way still farther up this mountain, 
I found a very curious mediseval tower, circular, 
not less than eighty feet high, with no door, with 
no entrance except a single window some twenty 
feet fi:om the ground, and with no other opening, 
except slits a few inches wide, for the discharge 
of arrows and missiles, — a strong hold that must 

1 The canton of Valais, in which this watering-place is situated, is 
the only one of the cantons of Switzerland in which public gam« 
bling is not prohibited by severe penal laws. 



122 SWITZERLAND. 

have been absolutely impregnable before the inven- 
tion of gunpowder. The walls are at least four 
feet thick, and show no symptoms of decay or 
dilapidation. Near this tower is a deserted chapel 
of equally massive architecture, with a huge pile 
of human skulls and bones in the cellar. 

One of the great delights of European travel 
consists in the thick-sown memorials of early and 
unfamiliar ages. Hardly a spot which nature has 
designated as of peculiar interest, fails of some 
such added prestige. Sw^iss scenery, indeed, needs 
no increment of its charms ; but, in other parts 
of Europe, there are not a few of the most pictu- 
resque routes and goals of fashionable pilgrimage, 
that owe full as much of their special attractiveness 
to the glamour of legend and tradition hanging about 
castle, chapel, or ruin, as to the unaided w^ork of 
nature. One may often find the history of thou- 
sands of years within the range of his vision, — 
rude and scattered remains of pristine barbaric 
masonry ; types of Roman occupancy as inde- 
structible as the impress of the Roman mind on the 
laws and polities of its subject races ; vast piles 
that were the seat of feudal luxury, tyranny, and 
warfare ; and edifices with all the appliances of 
modern art, taste, and elegance. 

Moreover, there is an obvious reason for the 
frequent coincidence of the picturesque in nature, 
and in ancient and mediaeval art. In early warfare 



MEMORIALS OF FEUDALISM. 123 

mountains and hills were more easy of defence 
than lowland sites ; and when every noble was 
either a freebooter, or a semi-independent military 
chieftain, the very spots which now seem accessible 
only to the mountain goat, were chosen for human 
habitation, and are therefore now fraught with his- 
torical reminiscences, crowned with monuments of 
old renown, of iron rule, of knightly prowess, and 
of savage butchery. 



CHAPTER VI. 

CHAMOUNY AND NORTHERN ITALY. 

Boutes to Chamoimj. — The Valley. — The Fl^gere. — The Montan- 
vert. — The Mer de Glace. — The Glacier des Bossons. — Sunrise 
at Chamounj. — The Simplon. — First Views of Italy. — Domo 
d' Ossola. — Lake Maggiore. — Lake Lugano. — Lugano. — Lake of 
Como. — Como. — Market-scene. — Milan. — The Last Supper. — 
Church of St. Ambrose. — Golden Altar. — Ambrosian Library. 

That I should have written a chapter on Swit- 
zerland without a word about Chamouny and Mont 
Blanc, might seem like the omission, which has 
grown into a proverb, of the part of Hamlet from 
the tragedy that bears his name. But Chamouny, 
though ^sthetically in Switzerland, is politically in 
France, — the line between the two countries cross- 
ing the summit of the Col de Balme, between two 
adjacent hovels that do service as hotels. 

There is a diligence route from Geneva to Cha- 
mouny; but I know of it only from guide-books. 
For mules and pedestrians, there are two routes 
from Martigny, both over mountains seven or eight 
thousand feet high, but differing as widely in their 
complexion as if they belonged to opposite hemi- 
$pheres. The Col de Balme path is over heights 



THE VALLEY OF CHAMOUNY. 125 

of awful grandeur, stern, rugged, desolate. On the 
summit, whence is obtained the first near view of 
Mont Blanc, there are always eddying winds ; the 
cold, even on a summer noon, pierces to the bones ; 
sudden snow-squalls drive across the mountain ; 
and unmelting snow lies wherever it can escape the 
sun's direct radiance. The passage over the neigh- 
boring height, the Tete Noir, is as charming as it is 
grand, — on the brink, indeed, of ravines that seem 
sunless and bottomless ; but in the face of bright 
and merry cascades, over and under cliflPs heavily 
clothed with verdure and bloom, through rich pas- 
tures enlivened by the bell-note from vast herds of 
cows, at the foot of thinner and higher pastures, so 
precipitous that it seems a marvel that the goats 
that throng their sides can cling and eat at the 
same moment, by clefts that open deep, glowing 
vistas of valley, glen, and river, across brooks and 
torrents wild and fierce, but full of light and glad- 
ness. 

The Yalley of Chamouny can hardly be surpassed 
in loveliness during its short and rapid summer. 
About fifteen miles lono;, and less than a mile in 
width, fertile, and of the richest green ; w^ith moun- 
tains of immense altitude on either side, and closed 
in at the extremities by mountains of a lower grade, 
yet lofty anywhere but here ; with several little vil- 
lages, picturesque in their general aspect, though 
not in detail, and numerous farm-houses to which 
the samg discrimination must be applied, — it seems 



126 CHAMOUNY AND NORTHERN ITALY. 

a place to be admired and rejoiced in. The valley 
has an elevation of three thousand feet, yet is kept 
warm by the sheltering mountains. During my 
sojourn there I felt but one want. The atmosphere 
was too persistently and intensely clear to give me 
those constantly varying and boundlessly variable 
effects of cloud and mist, which are among the 
great charms of mountain scenery. Mont Blanc 
was not veiled for one moment, by day or night, nor 
was there any play of mists or cloud-shadows on 
the mountain-sides. Just after sunset, however, 
each evening, wreaths of mist rose from the valley, 
and were gloriously tinged by the rays that shot up 
from the western twilight. 

My first excursion was the ascent of the Fl^g^re, 
six thousand feet high, directly opposite Mont 
Blanc, and resting against the highest of the 
Aiguilles Rouges, a series of needle-shaped, fer- 
ruginous peaks. The path up the mountain crosses 
numerous cascades and torrents. The summit af- 
fords a view unsurpassed in grandeur, presenting 
all the mountains in their separate and widely vary- 
ing contours, with the glaciers that lie between them 
and slope down into the valley. 

After descending the Flegere, I crossed the val- 
ley to the Glacier des Bois (which is the lower 
part of the Mer de Glace), and entered the ice- 
cavern whence the Arveiron issues, — a cavern sev- 
eral hundred feet deep, the walls and roof looking 
as if built of pure rock crystal, with numberless 



THE MER DE GLACE. 127 

pendent stalactites. Here torches light the visitor's 
slippery path. The pure brilliancy of the interior 
transcends all power of description ; for imagery 
that shall give the faintest conception of it, one must 
refer to the Apocalyptic vision of the walls and 
gates of the New Jerusalem. 

My next ascent was of the Montanvert, on the 
same side of the valley with Mont Blanc. I wit- 
nessed here one of the most stupendously grand 
phenomena of my mountain experience, perhaps not 
rare to Alpine tourists, though to me unique. I 
was toiling up a very high mountain-shoulder east 
of the valley, over which, though it was between 
nine and ten o'clock, the sun had not yet climbed. 
The mountain is covered with pines to the very 
top, except in the scars of the avalanches. I came 
to one of these scars, and looked up, when I was in- 
stantly reminded of the miracle of the burning 
bush, which gave the name of Sinai (the husK) to 
one of the peaks of Horeb. I saw a pine-tree 
burning, but unconsumed. Could it have been pos- 
sible, I should have thought it actually on fire. 
As I looked, the next tree caught the flame, and 
then the next, till there were scores of these burn- 
ing trees kindled into an intensely luminous blaze, 
and shooting up waves of flame into the sky. At 
length the fire-king showed his countenance above 
the trees, and they subsided into ordinary sunshine 
before his transcendino- lustre. 

A slight descent from the Montanvert brought 



128 CHAMOUNY AND NORTHERN ITALY. 

me to the Mer de Glace, — an immense glacier 
which stretches down for thousands of feet into the 
valley. I crossed this, passing crevasses deeper 
than the eye could reach, and immense circular 
pits, down which torrents of water, as the surface 
melts, are sucked as into whirlpools. From the 
side of the Mer de Glace opposite the Montanvert is 
a very steep descent to the Chapeau, — part of the 
way, over the Mauvais Pas, which are narrow steps 
cut in the ice on the brink of a fearful precipice ; 
and the whole of the route, under precipitous chffs, 
from which pour cascades, in every form of beau- 
ty that falling water can assume, sometimes in 
sheets of crystal transparency, then in sheets of 
foam, then in showers of feathery spray. The 
Chapeau is a little rocky covert, with a small inn, 
still at a great height above the valley, whence the 
downward path — fearful no longer — lies by cul- 
tivated ground, by farm-houses, and among popu- 
lous herds with their multitudinous tinkling ; for no 
member of the herd is without her own bell. 

I spent the next day on the Glacier des Bossons, 
the purest and most beautiful, and one of the larg- 
est of the glaciers. It is, in fact, a mountain of ice, 
which has accumulated between two other moun- 
tains higher than itself, and stretches down from 
an elevation of several thousand feet almost into 
the valley, sending out from the lower part of its 
surface singing rivulets and roaring torrents. I 
climbed its steeps, looked down into its crevasses, 



SUNRISE AT CHAMOUNY. 129 

threw stones and fragments of ice into its whirl- 
pools, and heard them striking against their sides, 
and falling into water a thousand feet below me. 
I leaped from crest to crest of the frozen billows, 
as I used to leap from rock to rock on the sea- 
shore in my boyhood. All the while, the gran- 
deur of the ice-sea grew upon me. It seemed un- 
utterably great and glorious, and was unspeakably 
splendid in its pure heights, with its unnumbered 
needles and pinnacles glittering in the sunlight, and 
hardly less so, when I descended to its lower alti- 
tudes, and saw the acres upon acres of huge rocks, 
gravel, and soil, which had rolled over it into the 
valley. 

Coleridge's " Hymn " made me solicitous to see a 
sunris'j in the Vale of Chamouny. I rose with the 
bell for early mass. The day-star had disappeared ; 
but the waning moon was hanging directly over 
Mont Blanc, bright at first, and growing gradually 
pale with the increase of daylight. The air was 
clear ; the mountains cloudless ; the temperature 
just chilly enough to make a brisk walk pleasant 
and inspiriting. In a few minutes the great snow- 
dome of Mont Blanc was kindled with the first ray 
of the sun ; then it was caught by its companion 
domes a little lower ; then successively by lower 
and lower peaks and needles. And as each moun- 
tain caught the blaze, the light spilled over the 
summit, like water from an over-full vessel, and 
trickled gradually down the sides, till all the moun- 

9 



130 CHAMOUNY AND NORTHERN ITALY. 

tain tops and sides, except the Aiguilles from which 
the sun was to rise upon the valley, were aglow. 
All this while the sun itself was invisible. It was 
full two hours from the first illumination, before the 
sun had climbed the high mountain-shoulder, from 
wdiich it looked into the valley. 

The Arve and Arveiron " raved ceaselessly ; " 
their voice would have been a roar, were it not so 
sweet. Numerous torrents and waterfalls were in 
sight, "and they too had a voice;" but it was 
almost drowned by the louder melody of the rivers. 
Sweet strains from Alpine horns, nearer and more 
distant, added to the charm. The immense glaciers 
sloped down from their fearful heights in full view, — • 
as they approached the valley, surrounded by, and 
almost lost in vast boulders, splinters of rock, peb- 
bles, and debris, that had been swept by them 
and over them from the mountains. There too 
was " the silent sea of pines ; " for up to the line 
of perennial snow, the mountains of this range, ex- 
cept where scored by avalanches, are all pine-clad. 
And the pine of Chamouny is solemn and sombre, 
very dark in its tint, straight in growth, slender, 
conical, forming one of the peculiar features of this 
whole region. 

Glorious as the scene w^as, I enjoyed it alone. 
Of the hundreds of strangers in the village, I saw 
not one, though I responded to the invariable and 
courteous hon matin of a large number of residents 
of the valley, who were coming to mass, to market, 



ASCENT OF MONT BLANC. 131 

or to their places as porters, waiters, or laundresses 
at the hotels. 

While I was at Chamouny, a party ascended 
Mont Blanc, under as favorable circumstances, per- 
haps, as could, by any possibility, concur. A friend 
of mine, who was of the party, represented the 
ascent as involving such toil and hardship as could 
be endured only by a man in the fulness of his 
strength, and perils, not inevitable, but demanding, 
in order to evade them, both prudence and agility. 
The result was such a view from the summit as, 
according to the guides, is hardly to be obtained 
twice, sometimes not once in a season, and a showy 
diploma — for which a very heavy fee is always 
charged — attesting the fact of the ascent. I came 
to the conclusion that the enterprise is at once too 
hazardous and too doubtful as to its satisfactory 
issue, to be wisely undertaken, unless in the cause 
of science, and with all the precautionary arrange- 
ments which would connect themselves only with 
a carefully organized expedition. Fatal accidents 
occur on the mountain every season, and it seems 
arrant fool-hardiness to imperil life for the mere 
chance of a transcendently glorious sunrise on the 
ascent, and a sublime prospect from the summit. 
The other excursions from the valley — reasonably 
safe, and not overtasking the strength of a vigorous 
constitution — will give one memories that will be 
1 life-long privilege and joy. 



132 CHAMOUNY AND NORTHERN ITALY. 

I went from Switzerland to Italy over the Sim- 
plon. At Sion I exchanged the railway for the dili- 
gence. A large portion of the road from Sion to 
Brieg ascends the Valley of the Rhone, crossing 
many of its smaller tributaries. For about half 
the way, the countrV/is fertile, and the acclivities 
are all terraced for the cultivation of the vine, 
which here, as on the Rhine, is planted in hills, 
and trained on poles to a height at w^hich the top- 
most tendrils can be reached by the hand. After 
leaving the vine-region, I found myself in what 
seemed to be the most sterile portion of Switzer- 
land. There are still on this route many traces 
of Roman occupancy, especially of Roman military 
architecture, which has, in several cases, been con- 
verted to ecclesiastical uses. At Sion, a very spa- 
cious seminary for the education of Roman Catholic 
priests is built on the site, and from the materials 
of a Roman fortress. Tourtemagne (a corruption 
of turris magyia) has a church, constructed by 
merely making the requisite alterations in the great 
tower — likely to stand for several centuries — from 
which the place derives its name. 

The Simplon road commences at Brieg, and ter- 
minates at Domo d'Ossola. It was built, as my 
readers know, by Napoleon I., and was designed to 
be the chief among the unifying bonds that were to 
hold together his vast European empire. The con- 
ception and execution are well worthy of his surpass- 
ing genius, foresight, and energy. It is one of the 



THE SIMPLON. 133 

most magnificent of human achievements ; and for 
many years, until the completion of some of the 
more difficult railway routes, it stood alone and 
unapproached among the triumphs of the art and 
science of the engineer. It winds so gradually up 
the mountain, that there are no very steep grades 
in the ascent of between seven and eight thousand 
feet ; and, though it is almost wholly a shelf-road, 
with precipices above and beneath, it is as safe, in 
summer, as if it w^ere on level ground. 

We passed, after the first hour, into a region of 
cloud, and often had no view of any object below 
us. Then we w^ould get a momentary glimpse of 
the whiter or more dazzling features of the scenery 
beneath, such as the rivers and waterfalls. The 
road is carried tlu"ough several long galleries, — 
some hewn through limestone, and garnished with 
stalactites formed by the melting of lime in the 
percolating water ; some cut through ledges of mica- 
slate ; some built over places where there is special 
danger of avalanches. One of these galleries is a 
long covered bridge under a river, which, issuing 
from a glacier above, tumbles over this structure 
into an abyss many hundred feet below. Wide 
lateral openings permit the traveller to enjoy in 
full the grandeur of this waterfall, and to w^ash his 
hands in its spray. It would be idle to enumerate 
the glaciers, cataracts, ravines, surprises of the 
grand, the terrific, and the beautiful, by, through, 
over, or under which, one passes on this road. 



134 CHAMOimr AND NORTHERN ITALY. 

Suffice it to say, that the Swiss portion of it seems 
a close clustering, in intensified forms, of all the 
wilder types of Swiss scenery. 

At the summit of the pass is a broad, sterile valley, 
flanked by mountains covered with perennial snow, 
with glaciers overlapping the margin of the valley. 
As a deep fall of snow renders the upper portions 
of the road exceedingly difficult and perilous, and 
a snow-slide may make sections of it for a time 
impassable, nine houses of refuge have been built 
by the government, and are kept constantly fur- 
nished with necessaries for man and beast. Besides 
these, there is, near the summit, the Hospice, a very 
spacious edifice, large enough to house an army of 
travellers, owned by the St. Bernard brotherhood, 
and occupied by a colony of the brethren, who 
furnish meat, drink, and lodging, gratuitously, 
though guests who can afford it, of course, leave 
their contributions in the charity-box. The apart- 
ments in the hospice are large and faultlessly neat, 
but damp, chilly, musty, and cheerless. A more 
dreary residence the world can hardly offer, there 
being nine months of pure and three of mixed 
winter. The monks seem the impersonation of 
benevolence ; yet they evidently pay the price of 
their seclusion and their desolate abode, in the etio- 
lation of their mental faculties. They seem stupid, 
dull, and impassive. Not so their huge and noble 
St. Bernard dogs, whose whole mien is that of 
numan intelligence, and more than human sagacity 



FIRST VIEWS OF ITALY. 135 

and skill. They gave our party a most hospitable 
welcome, with the frank and genial air of courtly 
hosts receiving honored guests, and I could not but 
read in their speaking eyes, a consciousness of their 
humane mission. They and their masters hold 
sinecure places during the season of pleasure- 
travel; but for the rest of the year, the large 
amount of freight and traffic that passes over the 
Simplon tasks all their energies and all the resources 
of their skilled benevolence, — exposed travellers 
being frequently indebted to them for rescue from 
imminent death, and large parties being sometimes 
detained, for several days, by obstructions on the 
road. 

^ A few miles below the summit, we passed the 
column which marks the boundary between Swit- 
zerland and Italy, and then rapidly descended into 
a most verdant and lovely plain, with types of 
scenery and architecture to me entirely new. The 
vines here are sometimes made to climb on trel- 
lises, sometimes trained from tree to tree ; but they 
generally run over frames from three to seven feet 
high. The villas are charmingly picturesque, 
white or in bright colors, often with historical or 
sacred subjects, armorial bearings, or quaint de- 
vices, elaborately painted on the front wall, — beau- 
tifully embowered, — generally with square towers 
five or six stories high. The churches and chapels 
have similar towers, either at one corner, or de- 
tached, w^ith an intervening space of a few feet. 



136 CHAMOUNY AND NORTHERN ITALY. 

Domo d'Ossola is surrounded by gentle accliv- 
ities, all of which are studded with such villas as I 
have described, while a panorama of lofty mountains 
bounds the horizon. I lodged here at an hotel of a 
construction of which I found many other specimens 
in Italy. It is built round the four sides of a court- 
yard, with no entrance from the street except an 
arched carriage-way, and with no interior staircases, 
but with roofed and railed galleries round each 
story, outside staircases leading from story to story, 
and the apartments opening on the galleries. My 
room was sumptuously furnished, but with a stone 
floor ; and in Northern Italy, I found stone, brick, 
tiled, or marble floors, uncarpeted, the prevailing 
fashion. So far as my own experience is concerned, 
I would much rather dream of marble halls thi>^ 
live in them. Not only does an American crave 
the warmth of a carpet ; his unaccustomed feet slide 
on the smooth surface, and he feels less safe in per- 
ambulating his own room, than in any other mode 
or on any other medium of locomotion. 

I went from Domo d'Ossola, over a smooth road, 
through a succession of verdant and fertile valleys, 
and with rich and ever varying mountain-views, 
to Baveno, on Lake Maggiore. This lake is sur- 
rounded by gently sloping hills, with vineyards and 
locust and chestnut groves to their very summits, 
and dotted all over with white farm-houses, villas, 
and chapels. Here lie the Borromean Islands, al- 
most tropical in their capacity of culture, teeming 



LUGANO. 137 

with the most gorgeous vegetation, and looking like 
the very Islands of the Blessed. The coast of the 
lake is sinuous, with many deep indentations and 
i^apacious coves ; its waters limpid and bright ; its 
little ports having an almost festive aspect. 

I took passage on a steamer for Luino, which is 
an antique-looking place, with narrow, precipitous 
streets leading up from the lake, with many large 
dwellings and other buildings that have an air of 
effete grandeur, and with a not very large inter- 
mingling of dwelhngs that are both old and mean. 

From Luino, a drive of two hours brought me 
to Lugano, on the lake of the same name, which is 
connected with Lake Maggiore by the river Tosa 
and three smaller lakes, along which my road lay. 
Lake Lugano is less frequented than Maggiore and 
Como, but is certainly not the least beautiful of the 
three, — lying like a crater, with a rim of irregu- 
lar contour, varying in height from a few hundred 
to four or five thousand feet ; overhung by vine ter- 
races, ohve and chestnut groves, gardens that seem 
suspended directly over the water, and numerous 
hill-side hamlets and isolated villas. 

Half-way between the two lakes I had recrossed 
the Swiss frontier. Lugano is the capital of a Swiss 
canton, though in population, language, architec- 
ture, and habits, it is entirely an Italian city. The 
houses on the principal streets are built on arcades, 
which serve as an awning and shelter to the side- 
walks ; and not only almost all trades, but many of 



138 CHAMOUNY AND NORTHERN ITALY. 

the occupations which ive call domestic, are con- 
ducted on the outer margin of the sidewalks. 
There are several churches, only one of which, that 
of St. Lorenzo, is of superior architectural merit. 
In one of the smaller and poorer churches are three 
fine frescos by the elder Luini, — one originally 
painted where it is now seen, the others cut out 
from the walls for which they were designed. The 
hotel where I lodged, which is palatial in extent, 
and almost so in magnificence, is a secularized con- 
vent. Directly opposite to it is a beautiful foun- 
tain, surmounted by a colossal statue of William 
Tell. Near this, and most appropriately so, under 
an open dome supported by a circular colonnade, is 
a bronze bust of Washington, with the inscription. 
Magnum seculorum decus. This was erected by the 
Italian proprietor of a neighboring villa, who 
amassed an affluent fortune by commerce in the 
United States. 

Close by the city is Mount St. Salvador, having 
on its summit a chapel, which, on certain feast-days, 
is a shrine of pilgrimage for the people, whose de- 
votion, if measured by the toil of the ascent, must 
be sincere and fervent. This mountain commands, 
perhaps, as extensive a scope of grand and lovely 
scenery as any mountain in Switzerland. It lies 
directly opposite to the snow-covered range of 
Monte Rosa, fitly so termed, from the roseate hue 
in which the principal peak reflects the sunlight at 
all hours of the day, — a tint due, no doubt, to the 



THE LAKE OF COMO. 139 

peculiar angle which it makes with the horizon. 
With this mountain range, the whole of Lake 
Lugano, a large part of Maggiore, and the chain of 
intervening lakes, lie in clear view from the summit. 
I crossed Lake Lugano in a steamer, and, after a 
pleasant drive of two hours, reached the Lake of 
Como, whose beauty — the theme, as it has been, of 
elaborate panegyric and poetic enthusiasm for more 
than two thousand years — cannot be so pictured to 
the inward eye, that the sight shall not transcend 
the imagination. Virgil, in one of the Georgics, er- 
roneously names it as the greatest of the larger 
lakes (tantos lacus)^ and gives it the first place 
among these gems of Italy, in his enumeration of 
the points in which Italy excels all other lands. It 
is not, like the Lake of Brienz, a Himmelsee. The 
associations with it are Sybaritic rather than 
Paradisiacal. Everything in its aspect is in har- 
mony with the evidences of taste and luxury that 
crowd its shores. It seems to belong to a heaven 
on earth, but to a very earthly heaven. A row 
across it on a fine summer afternoon, was the most 
delicious aquatic experience of my life. The water 
so smooth and pellucid, as blue as the sky above ; 
the still air ; the genially tempered sun-heat ; the 
soft, thin haze on the shores and the mountains ; 
peals of silver-sounding bells (for it was a feast- 
dav) from the villao-es nearer and more remote ; 
the slow and lazy plash of the oars (for I so far 
belied the proverbial fastness of Americans as to 



140 CH AMOUNT AND NORTHERN ITALY. 

bid my boatman make no haste) ; the fleet of boats 
tliat thronged the lake, with awnings of divers tints, 
gay streamers, and merry parties in their holiday 
attire, — all have left on my memory an impression 
which can hardly be repeated or approached. 

My boat left me at Bellaggio, perhaps the most 
charming place on the lake, and a favorite summer 
residence for English families. The principal street 
skirts the margin of the lake, with houses and 
shops on one side only, and pleasure grounds slop- 
in o; rapidly upward in the rear. But a few feet 
from this most lovely of promenades, I was re- 
minded how little Nature can do toward infusing 
her own genial spirit, fraught with the Divine 
love and mercy, into the soul of man. I had 
hardly ever seen a more revolting spectacle than 
on the outside of the principal church, — a specta- 
cle, however, which was repeated to my eye sev- 
eral times afterward. It was a chapel — roofed over, 
but on the four sides protected only by a railing — 
surmounted with a death's head and cross bones ; 
and within, so placed as to force itself on the sight 
of every one who entered the church, an immense 
pile of human skulls, with a charity box, and an 
inscription begging alms for the eternal repose of 
the souls to whom those skulls belonged. 

At Bellaggio, I took a steamer for Como, and 
had, on the passage, a more extended view of the 
lake. It is narrow and sinuous. It sometimes so 
contracts and embays itself that but a small portion 



COMO. 141 

of it can be seen ; then it spreads into a broader 
sheet, and permits an extended vista on every side. 
It is completely locked in by hills and mountains, 
which preclude all distant views, except that, at one 
point, a somewhat lower ridge permits a prospect of 
far off Alps. The hills are generally cultivated to a 
considerable height, and wooded to their summits, 
with only a few bare crags and a few spots abraded 
by avalanches. But, wooded as they are, they are 
seamed and corruo^ated like the barren hill-sides of 
Scotland. The villages on the shore are very nu- 
merous, and the villas numberless, often exquisitely 
beautiful ; always showy, picturesquely situated, 
and making striking points in the landscape ; often 
painted in fancifal patterns, really grotesque, yet 
having a fine effect as they peer out from the 
dense masses of foliage in which they are uniformly 
embosomed. 

I am aware that there may seem a sameness in 
my description of these lakes, and it ought so to be ; 
for they have very much the same characteristics. 
They might, perhaps, be best represented by the 
three degrees of comparison, were it not that he 
who saw Maggiore first would want to use super- 
latives, and yet would feel the need of intensifying 
them as to Lugano, and still more as to Como. 

At the city of Como I slept under the guardian 
sign of the Angel, within a stone's throw of the lake, 
and the wash of the water over the pebbly beach 
gave its rhythm to my dreams. Before sunrise, I 



142 CHAMOUNY AiND NOKTHERN ITALY. 

was awakened by a multitude of concurrent, but 
not concordant voices, bass and treble, strained to 
the highest pitch, and, on looking out from my win- 
dow, I found what had been at nightfall a naked 
beach, covered with at least a hundred boats 
hauled on shore, which men and women were un- 
loading of provisions of all kinds for the market, 
and of what I at first supposed to be rudely manu- 
factured brooms, and marvelled that there should 
be so great a demand for them ; but I soon found 
that they were fagots for culinary use, — mere 
brush, which we should not deem worth the space 
it would occupy, being almost the only wood ever 
brought to market there. 

Attracted by this anticipative view, after breakfast 
I went to the principal market, and the spectacle was 
such a comedy as could be seen nowhere but in Italy, 
where childhood lingers into old age, and no ex- 
perience — however stern or sad — can so overlie 
the mirthful element, that it will not be perpetually 
cropping out. The people go to market as if they 
were going to a play, all of which they were to 
see, and a part to be. On this occasion, hurdy- 
gurdies and volunteer-singers gathered numerous 
little circles of not silent admirers. News-boys 
were chanting, in the monotone peculiar to their 
tribe, the names and contents of their respective 
sheets. Men, and especially women, at their stands 
of traffic, in loud voice, were alternately lauding 
their own wares, and exchanging depreciatory com- 



MILAN. 143 

ments on one another's merchandise,^ — In good 
humor, for the most part, though the joke that 
went an mch too far, called out the flashing eye 
and the clenched fist. Fowls of every feather, 
alive, and imprisoned in circular coops, kept up 
an incessant shriek of weariness, pain, and terror. 
How hard it was to bring it to my clear consci )us- 
ness that I was witnessing that operation — only a 
little less solemn than church-going — which, in our 
idiom, we term " going to market ! " 

But two objects in the city impressed themselves 
deeply on my memory. One is a monument to 
Volta, of scientific fame, consisting of a large ped- 
estal, bearing in relief devices representing his 
various electrical discoveries, with appropriate in- 
scriptions, surmounted by his full length statue. 
The other is the Cathedral, built wholly of white 
marble, with numerous statuettes and figures in 
alto relievo on the exterior, with an immense dome, 
and a ceiling which would be very grand, were it 
not for its gaudy and meaningless painting. 

From Como I went by rail to Milan. I drove 
from the station to the Hotel Cavour, on the piazza 
(or square) Cavour, and the first object that ar- 

1 This kind of talk, half-playful, half-malicious, called, if we mi:^tale 
not, in our vernacular vulgarism, " chaffing," seems to make up a 
large part of the conversation of Italians in the humbler departments 
of life. It appears to have been a characteristic of the same race in 
Horace's time. 

" Timi pueri nautLs, pueris convicia nautse 
Ingerere." 



144 CHAMOUNY AND NORTHERN ITALY. 

rested my attention was a magnificent monument 
to that potential guardian genius of Italy, who, no 
doubt, was slain professionally by the learned San- 
grados, whose chief instrument, all over the king- 
dom, is still the barber's lancet ; for the Italian 
barbers all practice phlebotomy, and blazon their 
sanguinary art by signs too disgusting for descrip- 
tion. The monument to this most illustrious of 
their late victims bears a colossal bronze statue of 
Cavour, with his name inscribed on the pedestal, 
and Italy, a draped and sandalled figure, also in 
bronze, with a gilt star over her head, and a stylus 
in her hand, represented as having just finished 
writing her statesman's name, her hand poised over 
the final stroke. 

The streets of Milan are very beautiful. The 
hotels and all the large houses are entered by gate- 
ways opening into court-yards, which exhibit foun- 
tains, gardens, and richly ornamented grounds, 
frequently with frescos on the inner wall represent- 
ing, so skillfully as to deceive one who does not 
look closely, lengthened vistas of verdure. 

Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper naturally held 
in my interest a place second only to the Cathedral 
which I described in a former chapter. The pic- 
ture was painted so as to cover entirely one wall 
of the refectory formerly belonging to the convent 
of Santa Maria della Grazie. The convent church 
is still a church, and retains the old name, and 
some valuable pictures ; but the other buildings are 



CHURCH OF ST. AMBROSE. 145 

secularized, and used as military barracks. The 
refectory, however, is now reserved from all occu- 
pancy, except that of artists, several of whom I found 
employed in copying the master-work. The pic- 
ture has suffered in every way, — first by smoke 
from the neighboring kitchen, then by an inunda- 
tion and the consequent dampness, then by the use 
of the room as a stabie in the time of Napoleon I., 
also by the cutting of a door through the lower 
part of the table. In some places the paint has 
peeled off. But still the original surpasses its best 
copies, though there is one in a church in Vienna, 
painted from a copy made before the wall had sus- 
tained any essential injury, which preserves some 
of the details that are now obscured. It is remark- 
able that, while other parts are defaced, there is not 
one of the thirteen countenances w^hich does not 
retain its expression, and not one -of the thirteen 
figures whose attitude and action may not be traced 
throughout. 

The most venerable church in Milan is that of 
St. Ambrose, built in the ninth century on the spot 
where, it is believed, stood the church in which St. 
Ambrose himself officiated. Here is a great rude 
stone pulpit, also an episcopal chair of solid stone. 
The ceiling rests on low, round arches, like those 
of a brick-kiln ; and the strangest nooks and vaults 
open in every part of the edifice, which has neither 
symmetry, order, nor unity of design, but was evi- 
dently built at a time when architecture was a lost 

10 



146 CHAMOUNY AND NORTHERN ITALY. 

art. The most wonderful object in it, truly a mir- 
acle of art, and nearly as old as the church itself, 
is its golden altar, — ordinarily kept covered by 
heavy oaken slabs, secured by clamps and locks, 
but exhibited for a A^aluable consideration to others 
than the faithful. The front consists of plates of 
gold, plentifully garnished with diamonds, rubies, 
topazes, and other precious stones. In the centre 
are eight compartments, in which are figures of our 
Saviour and several apostles, with the traditional 
symbols of the evangelists, while in the lateral 
panels are wrought the principal events of the Sav- 
iour's life from his nativity to his crucifixion. The 
sides and back of the altar are of silver, enamelled, 
gilt, and decked with precious stones. On the sides 
are figures of the Apocalyptic angels with the seven 
vials, and of several martyrs with appropriate in- 
signia. On the back are represented the leading 
events in the life of St. Ambrose. It is believed 
that the bodies of St. Ambrose and of two other 
saints lie beneath this altar. 

Next to this in interest is the Ambrosian Library, 
which has one of the best collections of ancient 
books and manuscripts in Europe. The second 
story is a gallery of art, containing a few originals 
and master-works by the greatest mediaeval painters, 
and what gratified me fully as much, large collec- 
tions of pencil-sketches and studies for pictures, 
not designed to be preserved, by Michael Angelo, 
Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and other artists of 



TRIUMPHAL ARCH. 147 

kindred fame. Among these are a large number 
of grotesque caricatures of the human face by 
Leonardo da Vinci, evidently di'awn for his own 
amusement, or for the amusement of children, yet 
showing in every line the master's genius. 

But I must leave Milan, with much of what I 
saw there untold. I have grouped these sketches 
of Northern Italy with Switzerland and Chamouny, 
partly because I have in my plan no other room 
for them, but especially because this whole region 
is intimately associated with Switzerland, the Alps 
being nowhere out of sight ; and the putative ter- 
minus of the Simplon road, in the purpose of Napo- 
leon, being at Milan, and there commemorated by a 
magnificent triumphal arch, to which Austria added 
new bass-reliefs after her recovery of the city, and 
to which the government of Italy has added yet 
more recent devices and inscriptions, celebrating 
the inauguration of her career as an independent 
kingdom. 



CHAPTER Vn. 

PARIS. 

Manysidedness of Paris. — Its Exterior. — Industry. — Manufactures. — 
Holidays. — Charities. — Education. — Paternal Government. — The 
Boulevards. — The Madeleine — The Pantheon. — Notre Dame. — 
Chapelle Expiatoire. — Chapel of St. Ferdinand. — Fere la Chaise. 
— Tomb of Napoleon. — The Louvre. — Jardin des Plantes. — Jar- 
din d'Acclimatation. 

The one attribute of Paris most emphatically im- 
pressed on the mind of the transient sojourner, and 
hardly less so, one would think, on that of the per- 
manent dweller, is what the Germans call " many- 
sidedness '' (^Vielseitigheit^ . It is in itself a micro- 
cosm, offering attractions for every taste, facilities 
for every pursuit, congenial society for every order 
of intellect and style of character. It might be the 
paradise equally of the fool and the philosopher. 
The most frivolous being on earth need there be in 
no fear of ennui ; while the student can there 
devote himself to his books, or to self-communion, 
with as few distractions as in the cloisters of a uni- 
versity. The eye can feast itself to repletion on a 
walk in almost any quarter, or, better, from the 
roof of an omnibus ; the aesthetic nature need not, 



SAFETY AND ORDER. 149 

as elsewhere, resort for its gratification to galleries 
and museums ; the philanthropist is satisfied, as in 
no other gi-eat city, at least by the surface-view of 
society ; the hospitable ear can find entertainment 
and instruction, copious, artistic, eloquent, learned, 
in drama, concert, or orchestra, in lecture, homily, 
or sermon, in all the tongues of the civilized world. 

Paris is the cleanest city I have ever seen. The 
streets are daily and thoroughly swept by a regiment 
of women, before the earliest conventional morning 
hour, and though, under the long, drizzling rains of 
winter, mud is inevitable, it lacks both depth and 
tenacity. 

Paris is the safest and most orderly of cities. If 
one contemplated living wholly for this world and 
its lower interests, and indulging his egotism and 
selfishness with the least possible interference from 
the equally narrow egotism and selfishness of others, 
Paris would be the home of his choice. But his 
moral nature might find little to stimulate or feed it. 
The great mass of the people have no other purpose 
than comfortable living, and there is, probably, no 
other city in Christendom, where the ideal and the 
maxims of life are so essentially atheistic as here. 
At the same time, in no other great city is crime so 
vigilantly suppressed, social tranquillity so faithfully 
guarded, government so like an unseen omnipres- 
ence. Vice undoubtedly abounds, and the num- 
bers that inwardly own no restraints of moral prin- 
ciple, must be fearfully large ; but theft, robbery, 



150 PARIS. 

and crimes of violence are exceedingly rare, and 
the persons and property of well-behaving people, 
both by day, and all through the brilliantly lighted 
night, are more secure in this great metropolis than 
in one of our New England rural villages. 

The whole city has a bright and festive aspect. 
Though in winter there is less of sunshine than 
there is believed to be in the upper heavens over 
London, Paris cannot look gloomy. The principal 
building-stone is a limestone — almost a marble — 
of a very light tint, which, though durable, is so soft 
that it may be carved about as easily as wood. 
There is, therefore, a great deal of graceful carving 
on the front of nearly every building, — pilasters, 
mouldings, heads, busts, figures in bass-relief. This 
material retains its purity. Bituminous coal is 
hardly used. Wood is the chief fuel, and that is 
bought by the kilogram, and too sparingly con- 
sumed to load the air with its smoke. 

Nowhere else is life so much like an infinitely 
complicated machine, in perfect order, all the springs 
freshly oiled, all the wheels moving without jar. 
The streams of pedestrians of every description 
meet and pass without jostling or confusion. The 
unceasing lines of carriages of every grade thread 
their way Avith wonderful rapidity, without colli- 
sion, and, instead of the reciprocal swearing of 
coachmen to which an American ear becomes pain- 
fully accustomed, there is a more or less familiar 
exchange of salutations between the Jehus, who 



INDUSTRY. 151 

courteously make room for eacli other. Many 
branches of traffic are conducted on the sidewalks, 
or in barrows just outside of them ; but they are so 
neatly arranged, and so quietly managed as to an- 
noy none, and to minister to the convenience of 
multitudes of purchasers. 

The shop-windows are an exhaustless study, for 
the exquisite taste, nay, the high grade of artistical 
skill, manifested in the choice and arrangement of 
show-goods. The shops are by no means so sumptu- 
ously fitted up as in our American cities. There is 
little expended in abnormally large window-panes, 
or even in plate-glass, though, in the best streets, 
there is more of it than of crown glass. Nor is it 
costly wares alone that attract admiration. How- 
ever humble the department of business, its insignia 
are so ordered as to show and satisfy the national 
instinct for the beautiful. 

There are no visible tokens of poverty in Paris, 
— not only no mendicancy (for that would be pre- 
cluded by the incessant vigilance of the police), but 
no regions of the city that look like the nestling 
places of utter and hopeless pauperism, and exceed- 
ingly few persons, young or old, that are not decent- 
ly dressed. This is owing, in great part, to the in- 
dustrious habits of the people. There is very little 
strength that is not utilized. Men who could wield 
a sledge-hammer are not, as in the United States, 
found measuring tape or selling bonbons. The 
lighter kinds of traffic are left almost entirely to 



152 PARIS. 

women, and they, instead of idly watching for cus- 
tomers, keep then' hands employed in knitting, 
needle-work, or embroidery, even while answering 
questions, or aw^aiting a purchaser's decision. 

The manufactures of Paris, too, are a source of 
general prosperity. About half a million, or nearly 
a third of the population, are officially reckoned as 
workmen (ouvriers^^ or workwomen (o\toriere%)^ and 
the gold value of the annual products of their indus- 
try is estimated at not less than seven hundred mil- 
lions of dollars. This estimate, of course, includes 
many articles consumed in the city almost as soon as 
produced, as in the case of the bakers and confection- 
ers, who number several thousand. But it must be 
remembered that a very large portion, even of such 
products, is consumed by transient residents, who 
leave their gold to pay for it, and whose purchases 
are virtually foreign commerce, with no charge for 
freight or insurance. The manufactures are so 
varied as to employ every grade of strength, skill, 
and culture. There are heavy manufactures in 
brass and iron ; and of the lighter and more costly 
products of handicraft, not textile, there is scarcely 
any one that enters largely into commerce which is 
not fabricated here. There are some manufactures 
of which Paris has the monopoly, such as the arti- 
cles de Paris (so-called), under which name are in- 
cluded numerous articles of furniture, jornament, 
jewelry, and vertu. There are also some descrip- 
tions of scientific instruments and apparatus, par- 



HOLIDAYS. 153 

ticularly such as are made wholly or in part of 
platinum, of which Paris is almost the only source 
of supply. 

While the Parisian is a thrifty producer of wealth, 
he is a frugal consumer. His skill stands to him in 
the stead of cost. The refuse and waste of an 
American family of moderate means, would feed a 
French family of equal number in a style of much 
greater luxury. The Parisian housewife buys, each 
day, just what she needs for the day, and no more ; 
and the market will supply the purchaser's least 
demand, even to the half of a pigeon, or a chicken's 
wing. 

As regards actual want, when it occurs, the mode 
of relief is so organized as to furnish the requisite 
supplies without cherishing pauperism. Though 
resort may always be had, in case of need, to the 
public chest, the only recognized guardians of the 
poor are the religious fraternities and sisterhoods spe- 
cially devoted to this work, and bringing to it the 
discretion derived from constant experience ; and 
whatever alms are bestowed are expended under 
their supervision. 

The Parisian workmen have numerous holidays. 
The greater part of Sunday is so used, those who 
attend mass crowding the early services, and devot 
ing the residue of the day to recreation. A pretty 
large proportion of the shops are closed on Sunday, 
and many handicrafts are suspended. I, indeed, 
cling to my faith in the Sabbath as a Divine institu- 



154 PARIS. 

tion for worship no less than for rest ; yet I cannot 
but acknowledge that, to a people not addicted to 
intemperance or disorder, the rest alone is an in- 
finite benefit. Then too, though there is by no 
means the conscientious recognition of church holi- 
days in wdnch Italian indolence takes so much com- 
fort, the principal ecclesiastical festivals are observed 
by even a more general abstinence fi:om labor than 
takes place on Sunday. And a Parisian holiday is 
an edifying spectacle. I was in Paris on All Saints' 
Day, and spent several hours of the day on the 
Champs-Elysees, the immense promenade and play- 
ground for the public. Thousands upon thousands 
of people were there in the afternoon and the early 
evening, — a large part of them in family groups, 
fathers, mothers, children, babies. All kinds of 
amusements w^ere going on, — puppet-shows, fan- 
dangos, exhibitions of waxwork, of monkeys, of 
mountebanks, of jugglers. Many of the families 
were seated at little tables, with a plate of cakes, 
and a bottle of wine, or glasses of eau suere. Others 
were clustered under the trees, on the elastic iron 
chairs, of which there are thousands in the public 
grounds. There was no drunkenness, no riot, no 
loud talking, nothing that could oflPend the most 
fastidious eye or ear, not even a rude boy ; for 
there are no boys in Paris, — only babies, and pre- 
cocious men. This immense crowd dispersed quiet- 
ly and rapidly as night came on, so that at eight 
o'clock there remained hardly a trace of the after- 



PHILANTHROPIC INSTITUTIONS. 155 

noon's festivity. This, be it borne in mind, is the 
gathering place, not of the aristocracy, hardly of 
the middle class, but chiefly of what would be called, 
by way of distinction, the lower classes ; yet there 
were very few whose appearance was not perfectly 
decent and respectable. How broad a contrast to 
oui* popular holidays ! 

The philanthropic institutions of the city are 
numerous, and munificently sustained, and there is 
no class of the unfortunate for which the most hb- 
eral provision is not made ; but these institutions, 
being under government control, and managed by 
the red-tape system, advance less rapidly than they 
might, and often cling to the old methods because 
the formalities requisite for the introduction of the 
new are so long and tedious. The Parisian hospi- 
tals, as is well known, are frequented by students 
from the whole civilized world ; but it is acknowl- 
edged that they are conducted primarily in the 
interest of science, incidentally in that of the 
patient. The first aim is to make a scientific di- 
agnosis and statement of a case, and an accurate 
record, from day to day, of the varying symptoms. 
Experiments are tried with the utmost freedom. 
If the patient recovers, it is well ; if he dies, the 
attending physicians or surgeons deem it equally 
well, if they have made a thorough study of the 
malady, and crowned their labors by a successful 
post mortem examination. 



156 PARIS. 

In the elementary schools of Paris, so far as I 
could learn, there is a close adherence to old meth- 
ods. For instance, history is studied by beginning 
with the creation, and cramming the memory with 
ancient names, dates, and isolated events. The 
learner thus reaches the history of his own nation 
and of recent periods, about the time when he 
might commence the study of ancient history with 
interest and profit. But nowhere else are there 
superior opportunities for the higher departments 
of education, or equal opportunities for the pursuit 
of mathematics and the natural sciences. In the 
Academy of Paris, a university which has grown 
up around the old ecclesiastical institution of the 
Sorbonne as a nucleus, there are Faculties of the 
Sciences, Letters, Theology, Law, and Medicine ; 
the professors are more numerous than those in all 
our New England colleges ; lectures are delivered 
gratuitously, in every department ; and the number 
of students ranges from eight to ten thousand, — 
those that have not their domicile in Paris gener- 
ally occupying lodgings in the neighborhood of the 
University, and giving name and character to the 
Latin Quarter on the left bank of the Seine. 

In Paris, one is reminded, at every step, of the 
minute oversight of the government, which, in this 
aspect, is truly paternal, treating its subjects as 
infants, utterly ignorant, and incapable of taking 
care of themselves, and prescribing by strict law 



PATERNAL GOVERNMENT. 157 

transactions which elsewhere are left to common 
sense and individual discretion. Nothing is sold or 
bought in the market which has not passed under 
governmental inspection. Every tub of butter is 
tasted ; every fish and fowl scrutinized. On hiring 
a carriage, one has the legal tariff of prices put into 
his hands, and the coachman who asks more than 
the prescribed fare, on complaint, loses his license. 
At a railway station, a functionary selects a carriage 
for the arriving passenger, superintends the transfer 
of his luggage, inquires his destination, and gives 
him a pa])er stating the precise sum to be paid for 
his fare. In all places of public resort and exhi- 
bition, gens d'armes are stationed to show visitors 
how and where they shall go, and they are seldom 
permitted to come out by the same door by which 
they entered. Every keeper of a hotel or lodging- 
house must make an immediate return to the police 
of the name, age, nationality, profession, last point 
of departure, and destination of each new guest; 
and the police are believed to acquire personal 
knowledge of the haunts and habits of every 
stranger. There was current, when I was in Paris, 
a story — probably authentic, for a well-known 
name was attached to it — of an American, who 
had taken private lodgings, lost himself on his first 
walk in Paris, and could remember neither the 
name of his host, nor that of the street in which he 
hved. He applied to one of the gens d'armes, who 
took him to the station-house, showed him the 



158 PARIS. 

record of his name and lodging, and then led hiiri 
home. 

The principal streets of Paris bear the name of 
Boulevards. The oldest of these streets surround 
what was the city in the time of Louis XIV., and 
occupy the site of the fortifications that inclosed 
it, which were then demolished. Thence the name. 
The long and broad streets that have since been 
laid out on both sides of the Seine, have the same 
name, though not for the same reason. The prin- 
cipal of these Boulevards — continuous, though 
with no less than twelve local designations — is a 
street four miles in length, with double rows of 
shade-trees, with broad sidewalks of asphaltum, and 
a carriage-way of the most generous width. For a 
great part of its extent, it is lined by sumptuous 
hotels, fashionable coffee-houses, gay and brilliant 
shops. It is splendid by day ; by night magnifi- 
cent. It seems the exchange of all nations, and is 
probably thronged by as great multitudes as surge 
through the chief thoroughfare of London, though 
its superior width and the flexibility of movement 
characteristic of the French, render it always safe 
and easy to make one's way in the crowd. In front 
of the coffee-houses on the Boidevards, loungers of 
both sexes occupy chairs which are let at a small 
price, and often take their coffee or wine at little 
round tables so arranged as not to interfere w^ith 
the comfort of foot passengers. On the Boulevard 
des Capuchins is the Grand Hotel, probably the 



THE MADELEINE. 159 

largest and best hotel in the world, a city in itself, 
with seventy parlors and more than seven hundred 
lodging-rooms, — divided into several wards, each 
with its separate bureau of administration, and so 
conducted that each guest receives as prompt and 
faithful attendance as if he were master or sole 
occupant of the premises. 

At the western extremity of this series of Boule- 
vards stands the Church of the Madeleine, in some 
respects the most remarkable church in Christen- 
dom, inasmuch as it is wholly unchurchlike in its 
architecture, being as veritable a Grecian temple as 
the Parthenon. It was begun, and barely begun 
before the first Revolution, was partly constructed 
as a Temple of Glory under Napoleon I., then was 
made a church by the restored Bourbon dynasty, 
and was completed under Louis Philippe, having 
cost more than fifteen million francs. It is wholly 
of marble, without and within. It is surrounded 
by a Corinthian colonnade, with a magnificent frieze 
and cornice, and in the spaces between the columns 
are niches with colossal figures of saints. It has 
no windows, but receives light through four sky- 
lights which surmount gorgeously gilded cupolas. 
It has, of course, no tower or spire. The roof has 
a very slight pitch, with triangular pediments, in one 
of which is an immense group in alto-relievo, one 
hundred and twenty-six feet by twenty-four, repre- 
senting the Saviour with the Magdalen kneeling at 



160 PARIS. 

his feet ; on the right, figures designating the virtues 
and graces of the redeemed, and on the left, figures 
of the vices that condemn the reprobate to perdi- 
tion. The doors are of bronze, with eight compart- 
ments, containing groups from sacred history, each 
ilhistrating a precept of the Decalogue. There are, 
in the interior, several groups of statuary, among 
which the most striking are, in the marriage-chapel, 
the marriage of Joseph and the Holy Virgin, and, 
in the Baptistery, the Baptism of the Saviour, — John 
being represented as pouring water from a shell 
upon the head of Jesus. 

The building is one which commands the highest 
admiration, yet not the religious awe which belongs 
to a temple of worship. It made me feel, more than 
ever before, the humanitarian, non-devotional char- 
acter of Grecian architecture ; for here every pos- 
sible endeavor has been employed to Christianize a 
Grecian temple, and employed in vain. 

Another building which refuses to be Christian- 
ized is the Pantheon, which, indeed, in its cruciform 
shape and with its immense dome, might claim a 
churchly status, yet is Corinthian throughout in its 
proportions and columns. It was the Church of St. 
Genevieve, and was secularized in the first Revo- 
lution under its present heathen name, which it 
retains, thouo-h now ao-ain made a church. The 
pediment over the portal contains a group in relief 
by David, representing France as dispensing honors 
among a numerous throng of artists, philosophers, 



NOTRE DAME. 161 

statesmen, and soldiers. The interior is elegant, 
but bare and desolate, and it has the air of a great 
citv hall rather than that of a church. 

Far diflPerent is the impression left on my mind 
by the church of Notre Dame, the Cathedral of 
Paris. This stands on the island in the Seine, which 
was the original city, and still bears the name, par 
eminence^ of la cite. It has now only the most 
squalid surroundings, — sheds, workshops, and waste 
ground, with the dismal Morgue in the rear. Its 
portals are of almost unequalled grandeur. In the 
vault of each of the three portals is a bass-relief, 
one representing the Last Judgment, the others, 
scenes in the life of the Virgin Mary and her 
mother, St. Anna ; and all the residue of the deep 
arches is filled with figures, allegorical, angelic, and 
human, — lowest of all, rows of almost detached 
figures of angels and saints, conspicuous among 
which is that of St. Denis with his head in his 
hands, and above, tier upon tier of sculptured forms 
in alto-relievo, each wrought with exquisite skill, — 
reminding one, in this holy throng about the gates 
of the earthly sanctuary, of the " great multitude 
which no man could number " in the heavenly 
temple. This church has the three largest and 
most beautiful rose- windows in Europe. The in- 
terior has been greatly injured in its effect by tlie 
recent painting of the entire ceiling in veritable 
room-paper patterns. 

I was taken into the sacristy, where there is a 
11 



162 PARIS. 

marvellously rich collection of ecclesiastical vessels 
and utensils in gold, profusely decked with precious 
stones, and of sacerdotal and royal robes, especially 
those worn at the coronation of Napoleon I., and at 
that of the present Emperor. Here are also treas- 
ured, as peculiarly sacred and precious, numerous 
relics and memorials of the venerable Archbishop 
AfFre, who was killed in endeavoring to suppress 
the insurrection of 1848. 

The most strikino; feature of this church is the 
two huge and lofty square towers, fully as massive, 
grand, curious, and grotesque as they are repre- 
sented in Victor Hugo's well known romance. 
The bases of these towers are surrounded by fig- 
ures of various beasts, real and fabulous, in all sorts 
of comical attitudes, as if the purpose had been to 
furnish inexhaustible materials of merriment for all 
coming generations. These great stone images 
glare at the visitor with so funny an expression, 
that it is almost impossible not to laugh in their 
faces. From the tops of the towers, similar heads 
look down from long crane-like mouldings, project- 
ing several feet from the cornices. The bell hung 
in one of these towers, is the largest bell I have 
ever seen, and as tolling on all the numerous great 
crises of alarm, tumult, and revolution, it has ac- 
quired an historical interest fall of the most tragic 
associations. The view from the roof of the Notre 
Dame enables one to appreciate the greatness of 
the city, whose limits are almost coextensive with 
the visible horizon. 



THE CHAPELLE EXPIATOIE^. 168 

I have spoken of some of the grotesque details of 
this edifice. It is a peculiarity of Gothic architec- 
ture that it absorbs and assimilates all incongruities, 
as the ocean does the impurities of a river, or the 
atmosphere the smoke of a cottage chimney. Why 
such odd things were wrought, it is hard to say, — 
whether with a comic purpose, or with an occult 
allegorical design, or, like discords in music, as 
members of a more comjjrehensive harmony. What- 
ever theory we adopt, there are few mediaeval 
churches in which something of this kind may not 
be found. 

The churches that I have described are so well 
known by name that they seemed to crave special 
notice. I must pass in silence many others that 
might equally claim attention, were it not that 
they lack literary and historical associations. But 
there are two relimous edifices of the most melan- 
choly interest, which no one can visit without pro- 
found emotion. One is the Chapelle Expiatoire, 
built on the spot where the remains of Louis XYI. 
and Marie Antoinette were deposited after their 
decapitation, and preserved till the restoration of 
the Bourbons. The chapel is small and simple, 
with a modest cupola. On the right of the en- 
trance is a marble group representing the queen 
as sustained bv Relio-ion ; and beneath it is inscribed, 
in gold on black marble, the whole of her exquisitely 
touching letter to the king's sister, in anticipation 
of her own imminent death. On the left is the 



164 ® PARIS. 

king, witli an angel at his side addressing him m 
the words uttered by his confessor at the moment of 
his execution, '''•Fils de Saint Louis, montez an ciel;''^ 
and beneath is inscribed his will, which, as he had 
almost nothing to bequeath, consists chiefly of 
words of tenderness to his wife, counsel to his chil- 
dren, love to his kindred, forgiveness to his ene- 
mies, and Christian resignation and hope, — this 
and the queen's letter being both so redolent of the 
very spirit of the cross, that, as one reads them on 
that long dishonored, now hallowed burial-site, he 
cannot but take the royal pair into his heart with 
all the honors of sainthood. Over the portal is a 
bass-relief, in marble, of the transfer of the royal 
remains to St. Denis. In the long, covered vesti- 
bule by which the chapel is entered from the street, 
are two rows of cenotaphs, in honor of the mem- 
bers of the Swiss guard who fell in defence of the 
kino;.-^ 

The other building to which I refer, is the 
Chapel of St. Ferdinand, erected by Louis Philippe 
on the site of the petty suburban grocery, into 
which his son Ferdinand, Duke of Orleans, was 

1 These same defenders of royalty — on the one hand mere merce- 
nary troops, on the other hand religiousl}'- true to their military obli- 
gation and oath — are commemorated on their native soil by the cel- 
ebrated Lien of Lucerne, hewn from the natural rock after a model 
by Thorwaldsen. On the rock are the names of the officers with the 
mscription, " Hdcetiorum Jidei ac vlrtuti. Die 10 Aug., 2 et 3 Sept. 
1792. Hcec sunt nomina eorum, qui ne sncramenti fidem fallerent^ 
fortissime pugnantes ceciderunt. Duces XXV 1. Solerti amicorum 
cura cladi superfuerunt Duces XVI. ^' 



PERE LA CHAISE. 165 

taken to die after lie had been tlirown from his 
carriage. This little cruciform chapel is simple, 
chaste, and beautiful. The very narrow lancet 
windows are painted with figures of Faith, Hope, 
Charity, and the patron saints of different members 
of the royal family. On the right hand of the en- 
trance is a marble group, representing Ferdinand 
on his death-bed, with an angel in the attitude of 
prayer kneeling at his head, — the latter figure 
having been the work of a princess who died before 
her brother. In a crypt behind the altar is a pic- 
ture of the death-scene, — a very poor picture as it 
seemed to me, yet of great interest, at once as com- 
memorating the scene, and as giving what are said 
to be authentic portraits of the royal family and 
other distinguished persons present. 

These memorials of the dead suggest, by an obvi- 
ous association, the Parisian cemetery of P^re la 
Chaise. The beauty of this cemetery is an obsolete 
tradition handed down from the time when every 
American graveyard was fearfully repulsive. As 
compared with our present burial-places, it is by no 
means beautiful. It has nothing rural about it, but 
is literally a city of the dead. Except the portion 
devoted to cheap and gratuitous interment, — where 
a grave is guaranteed for five years, and the same 
spot may be occupied by an indefinite succession of 
tenants, — the whole surface not needed for paths is 
covered with monumental structures, each inclosure 



166 PARIS. 

being just large enough for a single monument, 
with a tomb beneath it, but without any room for 
flowers or shrubbery. While many of the monu- 
ments are costly and splendid, there are none equal 
in sumptuousness to the most costly, and few equal 
in beauty to the most beautiful, in Greenwood and 
Mount Auburn. There are many, however, that 
are made illustrious by the names they bear. Most 
venerable of all is the tomb of Abelard and Heloisa, 
in which the sarcophagus containing their full-length 
figures was constructed under his direction before 
he died, while the canopy beneath which it rests 
was built from the ruins of the Abbey of the Para- 
clete, of which he was abbot. 

I noticed here, what has been often observed be- 
fore, the almost entire absence of Christian senti- 
ment in the inscriptions, unless the words De Pro- 
fundis^ which occur very frequently, be deemed 
Christian. In one inclosure, I saw a beautiful 
marble figure of the risen Saviour, with appropriate 
emblems ; but in very few instances could I discern 
any word or sign of hope. The memory of the de- 
parted, however, is kept green. The street by 
winch the cemetery is approached, is lined, for two 
or three furlongs, with stalls for the sale of memo- 
rial wreaths, generally made of amaranths, the col- 
ors so distributed as to shape the words of an in- 
scription in the circumference of the wreath. The 
inscriptions are of assorted patterns, adapted to 
every shade of relationship, and of affinity by mar- 



THE HOTEL DE VH^LE. 167 

riage, even to remote degrees ; to every type of 
grief, from the intensest agony to very mild regret ; 
and to every order of taste not too refined to pur- 
chase its words of loving sorrow. On All Saints' 
Day these wreaths are, indeed, in special requisition, 
but thev are in demand all of the time. Nor are 
they placed on new tombs only, but on many that 
belong not even to the present generation. I saw 
rich garlands and fresh flowers on the tombs of La 
Fontaine and Molidre. 

In further describing Paris, I hardly know what 
to select from the unnumbered objects of admira- 
tion that crowed upon the stranger's view. I might 
speak of the monumental pillars and arches, among 
which the Arc de I'Etoile transcends in magnifi- 
cence all other structures of the kind, and in mag- 
nitude and costliness surpasses even the triumphal 
arches of ancient Rome. Or I might describe the 
Tuileries, were it not that, when I was in Paris, a 
large portion of this immense palace was undergoing 
reconstruction, and while many of the old portals 
and facades were to remain unchanged, as they 
ought for their architectural symmetry and their 
artistical beauty, the general aspect of the building 
— which is more than a thousand feet in length 
and incloses two spacious squares — is now entirely 
diiferent from that in which I saw it. Or I might 
enlarge on the magnificent, luxurious, qicasi-regsi] 
appointments of the Hotel de Ville, the palace of the 



168 PARIS. 

municipal government, whose festivities, under the 
auspices of the Prefect of the Seine, are on a scale 
of elegance and grandeur which might safely defy 
the competition of the whole extra-Parisian world. 
But I ought not to multiply descriptions of build- 
ings, than which fe *y things can, by excess, grow 
more wearisome. 

Yet there is one edifice which I ought not to 
leave unmentioned, the Tomb of Napoleon, — to a 
large proportion of the French people the most 
aucrust and venerable structure in the world, com- 
manding, in many of its visitors, a reverence of look 
and mien which they show for nothing else in 
heaven or on earth. The tomb is a large and lofty 
chapel in the rear of the Church of the Hotel des 
Invalides, surmounted by a huge dome, — the most 
conspicuous object on the left bank of the Seine. 
The sarcophagus, which is of red granite, lies in a 
circular well directlv beneath the dome, and five or 
six feet below the floor, with a rich mosaic pave- 
ment around it, and under a canopy of marble, sup- 
ported by twelve colossal figures, allegorically rep- 
resenting so many epochs of the emperor's glory. 
The walls of the crypt behind the high altar are 
covered with bass-reliefs in marble, portraying the 
great moments of Napoleon's career. Over the 
altar is a wonderfully beautiful figure of the Sav- 
iour, in white marble, with a bronze cross. The 
entire architecture and ornamentation are massive, 
in faultless taste, and by no means inadequate as an 



THE LOUVRE. 169 

expression of the prevailing sentiment of reverence 
and gratitude with which the French people at 
large cherish the memory of the first Emperor, — 
equally the reconstructive genius of renovated 
France and the scourge of Europe. 

I spoke, at the commencement of this chapter, of 
the facilities afforded in Paris for every pursuit, and 
the abundance of models for every art. It would 
require a volume to describe all that I saw under 
this head ; but the recapitulation of a small part may 
form a fitting close for this chapter. The Louvre 
is an immense palace, connected with the Tuile- 
ries, formerly a royal residence, but now wholly 
devoted to collections of works of art and curious 
objects of every kind, and open freely to the public 
every day except Monday. There are here, it is 
said, no less than seven miles of pictures, many of 
them a mere waste of canvas, yet with a moder- 
ately good proportion of master-works, and of works 
of high merit. Of ancient, mediaeval, and modern 
sculpture the collection is very large, yet, as to the 
ancient, immeasurably inferior to those of Rome and 
Naples. There are here, too, halls upon halls of As- 
syrian and Egyptian remains, and mediasval relics ; 
specimens of the porcelain and pottery of all nations 
and ages ; unnumbered models of ships and objects 
of marine interest ; furniture and utensils, rare, 
splendid, antique, historical ; costumes of all times 
and lands ; personal memorials of almost all the long 



170 PARIS. 

line of French monarchs : in fine, materials for a 
complete history of not a few of the ornamental 
and useful arts, — as to the useful arts, however, 
surpassed by the South Kensington collection de- 
scribed in a former chapter. 

Next in importance is the Jardin des Plantes, 
which comprises all classes of objects belonging to 
every department of Natural History, with lecture- 
rooms, where lectures, which may be attended gra- 
tuitously, are delivered on every province of the 
kingdom of Nature. The garden itself is less taste- 
fully laid out and less carefully kept than the Royal 
Gardens at Kew, near London ; but it is immeasur- 
ably better stocked with exotics from every zone and 
climate. In the garden is a menagerie nowhere 
surpassed in the number and variety of birds and 
quadrupeds. In the buildings that surround the 
garden are immense cabinets of botany, mineral- 
ogy, zoology, and comparative anatomy. The zoo- 
logical cabinet is by far the largest in the world ; 
yet there are some particulars in which the illus- 
trious naturalist, whom imperial munificence has 
failed to win from his adopted soil, has made our 
infant museum at Cambridge undoubtedly its supe- 
rior. There is a higher art, a more perfect system, 
a clearer evidence of organizing genius, in our 
museum than in the Parisian cabinet. It is also 
the richer of the two in corals, shells, and fishes, in 
duplicates available for exchange, in specimens and 
materials for the study of embryology, and in fresh 



THE JARDIN D'ACCLIMATATION. 171 

materials for future investigation with a view to the 
advancement of science. At the same time, there 
is nothing in Paris to be compared with the admir- 
able diagrams and paintings, and the wonderfully 
delicate sections of shells, that have been prepared 
under Mr. Agassiz's direction. I was most im- 
pressed, in this French cabinet, by the multitude 
and variety of the birds. Were they alive and on 
the wing, they would people thousands of acres of 
forest. There are humming-birds alone, to the 
number of several thousands. The building is 
larger than the projected dimensions of our Cam- 
bridge Museum, of which the present edifice is but 
half of one wing ; yet in many parts it is crowded, 
in all well filled. 

Hardly inferior to the Jardin des Plantes in 
interest, is the Jardin d' Acclimatation, devoted to the 
naturalization of such foreign plants as it is deemed 
desirable to have cultivated in France, and the 
acclimation of such animals of all kinds as it is 
supposed may become useful or ornamental citizens 
of the empire. Of course, the fiercer beasts have 
no place here, and there are few carnivorous ani- 
mals. There is hardly an animal on the ground 
that is not tame enough to feed from the hand. 
There are innumerable strange and grotesque 
varieties of the species with which we are the most 
familiar, as of the goat, the sheep, the horse, the 
ox, the swine, together with various species of the 
yak, the llama, and the zebra. The varieties of the 



172 PARIS. 

deer are very numerous, from the gazelle tliat can 
be fondled like a kitten, to forest giants with horns 
like trees. There are camels, too, of several races, 
that all seem the meekest of beings ; and as they 
bow their tall heads to browse on the grass or twigs 
the visitor offers them, and ask for more with such 
tenderly beseeching eyes, they would melt even the 
functionaries of an English poor-house. There are 
dogs, also, of every size, hue, and use, — the only 
discontented members of the great family, evidently 
yearning for human society, and always ready to 
desist from worrying one another for the privilege 
of licking a visitor's hand through their prison-bars. 
There are here, too, fowls and feathered bipeds of 
every description, from ostriches to which a man 
six feet high has to look up, yet which behave like 
the very silliest of all flesh, to the smallest birds 
that are capable of being raised, and not unworthy 
of being eaten. There is also a vast aquarium, 
with an extensive school for the education of fishes, 
whether shell or scale, — an immense apiary, too, 
and a nursery for the various species of silkworms, 
and for the kinds of food on which they respec- 
tively are nourished. Under the regulations of the 
government, seeds, plants, and animals are here sold 
to citizens from all parts of France ; so that the 
empire is to be made cosmopolitan in its fauna and 
its flora, as far as the laws and limitations of nature 
will permit. 

In preparing this chapter, I have felt oppressed 



THE METROPOLIS OF THE MATERIAL ARTS. 173 

by the affluence of my materials. Perhaps I have 
not selected wisely ; but I have chosen the aspects 
and objects of Paris, which seemed to me most 
truly distinctive and characteristic. No one can 
sojourn in Paris without owning its preeminent 
claims, as, in the material arts, in all that ministers 
to the culture of the aesthetic nature, and in the 
sciences that belong wholly to the realm of things 
seen and temporal, the capital of the civilized 
world. 



CHAPTER YIII, 

NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

Naples. — Views. — People. — Modes of Living. — "Vesuvius. — The 
Solfatara. — Monte Nuovo. — Lake of Agnano. — Stufa di Nerone. 

— Virgilian Sites. — Avernus. — The Acherusia Palus. — The 
Elyslan Fields. — Cave of the Cumseau Sibyl. — Road to Sorrento. 

— Sorrento. — The Blue Grotto. — Capri. — Palace of Tiberius. — 
Road to Amalti. — Amalfi. — Salerno. — Peasants' costume. — Pres- 
ent Condition of Italy. — Protestantism in Naples and Florence. 

There is, probably, no other city in Europe, 
around which cluster so many charming associations 
as hang about Naples, — not for its own sake alone 
or chiefly, but on account of its position as the 
metropolis of a region in itself gloriously beautiful, 
full of sites of transcendent mythological and his- 
torical interest, and rich in memorials of ancient 
wealth, luxury, and art. 

The Bay of Naples, on which the city lies, cannot 
be surpassed in loveliness, nor can the broad 
streets and the long, narrow park that run along its 
shore ; and from the height on which the Castle of 
St. Elmo stands, with the intervening streets, as 
they lie beneath, almost lost to sight, the water 
view, becoming much more extensive, grows upon 
the admiration ; while, landward, the eye ranges 



OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE. 175 

over scenes that cease to be intensely beautiful only 
where they rise into sublimity. 

The streets of the city, except those that skirt 
the bay, are narrow ; even the Toledo — the 
Broadway of Naples — is of quite moderate width ; 
and the few public squares are not large or very 
attractive. The lower strata of society are densely 
peopled, — too densely for the hope of their rapid 
elevation. But there has been already a marked 
progress. Beggary, as a profession, has declined ; 
and while filth and squalidness are still prevalent, 
there are numerous tokens of the growth of me- 
chanical art and of the smaller manufactures. Yet 
the patient, provident industry of more northern 
climates is hardly to be found anywhere in South- 
ern Italy, where work in its intensity and duration 
is measured by the stress of need. The poorer 
people live almost wholly out-of-doors. They have 
no domestic life worthy of the name. They cook 
generally on the sidewalks, in little brass pans, over 
fires of brushwood or charcoal ; and if they eat 
under a roof, it is just within the threshold of an 
open door. Where they sleep at night, I know 
not ; but in the day large numbers of them sle^.p 
in the sun, wherever they can find a nook or angle 
to lie in, — those who use baskets for the carriage 
of tools or goods, often emptying them of their con- 
tents to curl themselves up in them for the after- 
noon nap. This out-of-door life lasts all through 
the winter ; for it is drier and warmer outside of 



176 NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

the liouse than withm, — the poorer houses seldom 
having windows on the lower story, and the floors 
being either earthen or of brick. Fire for otlier 
than culinary purposes is a luxury enjoyed by the 
very rich alone. The principal heating apparatus 
is the scaldino, a small earthen pot filled with 
embers. This is used throughout Italy, is carried 
about in the streets by all sorts of persons, and in 
one instance, at least, was put by a mediceval 
painter into the hand of an angel, about to start, it 
may be supposed, on some hyperborean mission. 

I was in and near Naples for twelve days, close 
upon the winter solstice, and during that time, there 
were two or three days that reminded me of our 
mid-summer, and but one day which seemed sugges- 
tive of winter. No vegetation, except the foliage of 
the vine, was withered. Orange and lemon trees 
were laden with ripe fruit, and at the same time 
snowy with the blossoms of the next crop, — the 
air replete with their delicious fragrance. One 
evening I bought on the street, for half a franc, a 
huge nosegay of camellias and orange blossoms, large 
enough to have furnished all the official personages 
at a New England wedding with more sumptuous 
bouquets than are recognized in traffic by our 
florists. All this is, no doubt, due in a great meas- 
ure to the subterranean fires, whose fearful prox- 
imity is attested by many phenomena besides those 
of the ever open chimneys, and especially by 
earthquakes, whose frequency has led, in that 



VESUVIUS. 177 

entire region, to the building of vaulted roofs, 
wliicli, on obvious mathematical principles, can re- 
sist a severer shock than either flat or angular roofs 
could sustain. 

My volcanic experiences — not to say " perils by 
fire " — may not unfittingly form the first section of 
my story of adventures in the vicinity of Naples. 
It was my misfortune to visit Vesuvius a year 
too soon. The mountain was so quiet that, by 
night, to the distant observer, it gave no sign, and 
by day, sent up only a very thin pillar of smoke. 
In ascendino; Vesuvius we exchanged our car- 
riages for horses and guides in one of the suburbs 
of Naples. For about an hour and a half, our up- 
ward way was through cultivated grounds, and 
through vineyards whose grapes alone produce the 
luscious wine known as Lachrimce Christie — then 
over vast fields of lava and of volcanic scorise. 
The lava here had cooled in the most fantastic 
shapes, so that one could trace in it the contour 
of almost every beast or object that could be 
named, and a great deal of it lay in folds or ridges, 
such as, on a small scale, hot hasty-pudding assumes 
when poured into a plate. It cools very slowly, 
except upon the surface. From an aperture not 
more than three or four feet deep, our guide took 
out for us pieces so hot that we could hardly hold 
them in our gloved hands ; yet this was lava that 
had been discharged in an eruption eight years 
before. These lava fields — black as ink — ex- 

12. 



178 NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

tend for several miles on each side of the bridle- 
path. In a brief oasis on this dreary ascent, are a 
hermitage with its chapel, and a royal astronomical 
observatory. Here we halted for a few minutes, 
and then went on again over lava fields, in what 
was the crater of an older volcano, of which the 
present Mount Vesuvius was the core, or centre. 

At the foot of the present cone, we left our 
horses, and commenced what seemed to us an al- 
most perpendicular ascent — each person being 
pulled up by two guides in front, and pushed by 
one behind — over huge scoria that would have 
been loose, were they not too heavy to be easily 
dislodged. This extraneous help is not, I think, 
necessary for an able-bodied man ; but it would 
require a Briareus, with as many clubs as hands, 
to stave off the guides, who seem to spring up out 
of the very stones, are wild, fierce, and bandit-like, 
and make themselves intolerably annoying to the 
traveller who will not employ a full complement of 
their number. Indeed, had I not wielded with 
some little vigor a staff which I had retained, my 
three would not have been less than six ; and 
every man who can, by any possibility, come in con- 
tact with a traveller, claims backshish of him. 

Under this convoy we reached the rim of the 
Vesuvius which then was, and looked down into 
the still reeking and smoking crater, taking into 
our nostrils the fumes of chloride of sulphur which 
steamed up from the seething cauldron below. 



VIEW FROM VESUVIUS. 179 

We found the interior of the crater richlj varie- 
gated with rocks and lava, containing larger or 
smaller proportions of sulphur, and not a few per- 
fectly formed crystals of sulphur. We descended 
into the crater, which was then entirely crusted 
over, and walked with conscious security, except 
to our boots — they were badly blistered — over 
places w^here we could not lay our hands without 
burning them, over apertures in which an egg 
could be boiled in three minutes, over chasms in 
which paper thrust down with a cane was instantly 
ignited. 

The prospect from the summit of Vesuvius is 
enchanting. Among mountain-views it appears to 
me as preeminent as Niagara among cataracts. 
Seemingly close at the foot of the mountain spreads 
the bay, with Capri, Ischia, and numerous smaller 
islands studding its surface, and with unnumbered 
fishing-boats lying or floating like mere specks on 
its bosom. The city of Naples and several pictu- 
resque towns, with gayly painted villas and white 
farm-houses interspersed along the valleys and hill- 
sides, form a vivid contrast to the desolation imme- 
diately around and below ; and the city so lies 
that, seen from this point, it has a more than 
earthly grandeur of aspect, — all that is mean and 
squalid being lost or glorified in the distance, while 
the more salient and massive features are thrown 
into a perspective that magnifies and exalts them. 
On all sides but that looking toward the bay, 



180 NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

mountains — Ijing as in a billowy sea — of every 
type, conical, abrupt, craggy, jagged, verdant, 
shut in the horizon, while to the north rises a 
range of the AjDennines, always crested with glit- 
tering snow. On the day of my ascent, the sun 
shone without a cloud, and the shadows of the 
mountains formed the only ^scuro in all the glorious 
landscape. The sea was so still that it looked, not 
like molten silver, but like a boundless sheet of 
burnished silver. 

Our descent was very rapid. A guide took each 
of us by the arm, and rushed down with us over 
a side of the mountain which consisted wholly of 
ashes, lying so loosely that we sank ankle-deep at 
every step. 

At a short distance from Naples is the Solfatara, 
— a volcanic opening, at which there are always 
tokens of peculiar activity when Vesuvius is in 
repose. The fires are always audible and visible, 
through an oven-like aperture about a hundred 
feet wide, in the side of a hill not more than three 
or four hundred feet high. The noise is as of the 
roaring of a thousand forge-fires ; while from the 
cavern and from many breathing-holes in the sur- 
rounding arid plain, issue pungent vapors of sul- 
phuretted hydrogen and muriate of ammonia. The 
soil, for a great distance around, is so hot that one 
cannot hold a handful of it with impunity ; and it 
is evidently but a thin crust over an old volcanic 
pit ; for it sounds hollow under the foot, and 



THE STUFA DI SAN GERMANO. 181 

responds in a deep, sepulchral tone to a heavy 
tread. 

A still more remarkable monument, though not 
now to the eye a memento of volcanic forces, is 
the Monte Nuovo, or New Mountain, — a hill more 
than a mile in circumference, and nearly five hun- 
dred feet high, which was thrown up by a series 
of volcanic eruptions, more than three centuries 
ago, and remained a mere heap of scoriae for more 
than two centuries. The tufa has, in the lapse of 
years, crumbled sufficiently to afford soil for quite 
luxuriant vegetation. 

Two or three miles from Naples, is the Lake of 
Agnano, from which a dense cloud of steam is al- 
ways ascending, so rapid is the evaporation induced 
by the heat of subterranean fires. Hard by the lake 
is the Stufa (or Stove) di San Germano, — a house 
built over a vent-hole whence issues a stream of 
sulphureous gas and vapor at a temperature of a 
hundred and eighty degrees. Here are rooms for 
vapor-baths, where the patient receives this exha- 
lation in its untempered heat, and other apartments, 
fitted as bed-rooms, where the heat is somewhat 
diminished by distance from its source. This hos- 
pital — a mere hovel, barren of all the comforts of 
civilized existence — is regarded with great favor 
by gouty and rheumatic patients, — many chronic 
and stubborn cases having yielded to the curative 
virtue of the stove, or, as is currently believed, to 
the intercession of the saint whose name it bears. 

A few steps from this stove is the Grotta del 



182 NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

Cane (Grotto of the Dog), known to Pliny, who 
speaks of it as one of " Charon's breathing-holes." ^ 
Here there are constantly exhaled from the bot- 
tom of the cave, puffs of vapor saturated with car- 
bonic acid gas, which, of course, seeks the lowest 
level, so that a man can live there while a dog 
would die. The entertainment of the place con- 
sists in the asphyxia of an unfortunate dog, who, in 
the travelling season, thus dies several times a day, 
and is reanimated by exposure to the external air. 

One more fiery trial, — the Stufa di Nerone 
(Nero's Stove), a narrow subterranean passage 
several hundred feet long and a hundred and eighty 
degrees hot, with several hot wells, or springs, boil- 
ing up beneath it. I trust I may never again be 
brought into so close physical sympathy with John 
Rogers, as when I was persuaded to travel this 
burnino; road. The remote remembrance is terrible. 
Yet there are several men and boys, capable of 
working, who get their living by boiling eggs in 
this Tophet. How Nero's name came to be appro- 
priated here we know not, unless it were given as 
his quantum meruit. But for whatever reason be- 
stowed, the name of the stove must be nearly as 
old as that of the emperor ; for Martial, in three 
different places, alludes to these wells, in one of 
them referring to their curative efficacy. " What 
is worse than Nero ? What better than his wells ? "^ 

1 " Spiracula Charonea scrobis mortiferum spiritum exhalantis.** 

2 " Quid Nerone pejus? 

Quid thermis melius Neronianis f " 



THE ACHERUSIA PALUS. 188 

It is in the near vicinity of this horrible place that 
Virgil, whose favorite residence was Naples, has 
laid the successive scenes of the descent of ^neas 
into the infernal regions. This was undoubtedly 
in accordance with the current, though not gener- 
ally credited mythology of his own time, and with 
the confident belief of earlier ages ; and what was 
more natural than to connect these terrific prodigies 
with a fearful underworld, — a prison-house and 
place of torture for ill-deserving souls, — the king- 
dom of Pluto, the fire-god, and the seat of his lu- 
rid court ? 

I found no little pleasure in following the steps 
of ^neas, like him a living man in the realm of 
the dead. But how things have changed ! Aver- 
nus is a charming little gem of a lake, about half a 
mile in diameter, with a tqvj facilis descensus^ but 
one as inviting as it is easy. It is almost circular, 
and walled all round by gently sloping hills ; and 
its waters are pure and bright. Its name denotes 
birdless ; for it was said that no bird could fly over 
it, and still live ; but the birds certainly do not 
shun it now. There is now no forest-growth in its 
neighborhood. It is not improbable that, when it 
was surrounded by a dense and frowning forest, 
it was, because of its very littleness, dark and 
gloomy ; and in that region of foul smells, mephitic 
3xhalations that have since found some other vent, 
may have risen from its banks. 

The Acherusia Palus, a salt-water lake, not- 



184 NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

withstanding its ill name, can never have had any- 
thing infernal about it, unless, perchance, the epithet 
may have been applied by irreverent lips to its 
oysters, on which 1 lunched at Baise, and found 
them not only coppery, but charged with various 
flavors suggestive of a sulphureous underworld. 
The Lucrine Lake is hard by, and that, it is well 
known, had unequalled fame for its oysters, which 
now are of the same quality with the Acherusian. 
Have tastes changed ? Or have the moUusca shared 
in the degeneracy of their human consumers ? Both 
of these lakes are bright and beautiful, with gently 
undulating shores, and with tokens of no little ac- 
tivity in the oyster business. 

Bordering on the Palus Acherusia, are the 
Elysian Fields, the only uninviting spot in that 
w^hole region. The inhabitants are the poorest and 
most beggarly of the peasantry about Naples. The 
only crop raised here is cotton, which, though it 
may minister largely to the social regeneration of 
Italy, is far from being ornamental, after the har- 
vest is gathered and the plants are left dry and 
black. The Elysian Fields are the site of numer- 
ous ancient columbaria^ each consisting of several 
tiers of receptacles, of about the shape and size of 
dove-cotes (whence the name), for urns containing 
the ashes of the dead. 

Among the most interesting of my Virgilian re- 
searches was my visit to the cave of the Cumsean 
Sibyl. I walked by torch-light through a circui- 



CAVE OF THE CUM^EAN SIBYL. 185 

tous underground passage several hundred feet long, 
then mounted a man's back, was carried through a 
subterranean lake more than knee-deep, and depos- 
ited on a rocky platform, on which are shown the 
Sibjd's bed-place, bath, and seat, as also the outer 
opening through which her votaries sought, and the 
orifice through which she gave her oracles. I was 
taken also into several other little chambers in the 
rock, and saw, radiating from them, passages which 
have become filled up, but which, probably, once led 
to the upper air.^ The situation of this cavern, 
close by Avernus, and its interior topography, make 
me believe that it is the very cavern of Virgil's 
Sibyl. Moreover, the Sibyl was no doubt a real 
personage. Nothing is more probable than that this 
cave was inhabited by a crazy woman, whose in- 
sane but high-flown words were regarded as tokens 
of inspiration, attached associations of sacred awe 
to her dwelling, and brought multitudes to her lair 
to make such meaning as they could from her frag- 
mentary and oracle-like utterances. 

These several Virgilian sites are in close proxim- 
ity to one another, are but a few miles from Naples, 
and would be a very fascinating study for a pro- 
longed residence. My visit to them was necessarily 
brief and rapid. 

There are, to the west of Naples, two or three 
other places of no little interest. Nearest to Naples 
is Pozzuoli, — the Puteoli at which Paul found 

1 " Aditus centum, ostia centum." 



186 NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

friends, and stayed seven days on his way to Rome. 
The road to it leaves Naples through the Grot- 
ta di Pozzuoli, a tunnel half a mile long, and in 
some places eighty feet high, which was constructed 
before the time of Nero, and is a splendid monu- 
ment of the masonry of that age. Near this tun- 
nel is the so-called tomb of Virgil, the genuineness 
of which is a subject of dispute among antiquaries. 
The most interesting object in Pozzuoli is the ruins 
of the celebrated amphitheatre, in which Nero de- 
graded the imperial majesty by fighting with beasts, 
probably less brutal than himself, for the amuse- 
ment of the king of Armenia. This is the most 
perfect ruin of the kind that I have seen, with the 
single exception of the amphitheatre of Verona, in 
which all the seats remain entire, so that perform- 
ances still take place in it. In the amphitheatre of 
Pozzuoli we can trace the entrances and vomitories, 
the portions of the building occupied by each class 
of spectators, the subterranean cells where the 
beasts were kept, the wells through which they 
were drawn up by machinery to the arena, and the 
robing and refreshment rooms of performers of va- 
rious kinds. St. Januarius and his companions are 
said to have fought with beasts here, without in- 
jury, before their martyrdom ; and his reputed 
prison has been converted into a chapel to his 
honor. Tliere is here a white stone, which is said 
to turn red annually at the very moment when his 
blood is liquefied in Naples, — probably not without 



SORRENTO. 187 

the semblance of truth ; for nothing can be easier 
than to perform, before two sets of equally credu- 
lous spectators, two simultaneous pieces of jugglery. 

There are also, in Pozzuoli, the remains of what 
is commonly called the Temple of Jupiter Serapis, 
whose colossal statue was found within its walls. I 
am inclined to think that it was a splendid bath- 
house ; for, on that hypothesis, it is perfectly easy to 
trace the several bath-rooms, and the conduits by 
which the hot springs in the neighborhood were led 
into them. Moreover, Puteoli was, for several cen- 
turies, one of the most fashionable of watering- 
places, remarkable for its hot baths. 

There is a similar open question as to three im- 
posing ruins at Baise. One of these, called the 
Temple of Venus — an octagonal building — is in 
excellent preservation, and has, at the several an- 
gles, pilasters containing water-pipes. It is well 
known that Baise was second, in the sumptuousness 
of its baths, to no place in the Roman Empire ; but 
if these so-called temples did not serve that pur- 
pose, the bath-houses, which must have been spa- 
"•ioiis and magnificent, have perished without a 
isign. Of the numerous villas of illustrious Komans 
which once adorned this luxurious city there are 
few vestiges, and the village that now occupies its 
site is squalid in the extreme. 

South, a little to the east of Naples, on the Bay 
of Naples, lies Sorrento. In going thither, I took 
the railway as far as Castellamare, so called from a 



188 NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

most picturesque castle of historical renown — now 
partly in ruins — covering the whole of a little isl- 
and a few rods from the shore. The railway skirts 
the bay, and offers a series of magnificent views. 
From Castellamare, I took a carriage to Sorrento, — 
still by the bay, — under rocks and immense crags 
completely honeycombed by time and w^ater; by 
and over ravines where vast cliffs had been torn 
asunder by earthquakes, and the chasms on both 
sides terraced, and filled with orange and lemon 
groves ; on shelf-roads, between beetling precipices 
overhanging the sea and terraced hills planted to 
their summits ; through tracts of the most delicious 
verdure and fruitage ; under large towns crowning 
the hill-tops and clinging to the hill-sides. 

Sorrento is a port of considerable commerce, and 
one of the chief entrepots for the exportation of 
oranges and lemons ; and on the way thither and in 
the streets, we encountered hundreds of women 
and girls from the whole neighboring country, with 
large flat baskets of fruit on their heads. The 
town is a busy place, celebrated for the exquisite 
fineness and delicacy of its wood-carving, and car- 
rying on quite an extensive traffic in ornaments 
of this class. Its situation is beautiful beyond 
description. There is not a landward view that is 
not Eden-like, and the sea is overhung with orange 
groves that extend to its very margin. The con- 
tour of the sea-line is so curved as to break the im- 
petus of the waves, which reach the shore in lam- 



CAPRI. 189 

bent curls of silvery spray and with the softest 
murmur. Directly over the sea, stands the house in 
which Tasso was born, — now an inn. It is a 
house dilapidated by time and water ; the chamber 
in which the poet saw the light has disappeared ; 
and the entire edifice, projecting over its founda- 
tion-walls, with a strong inclination seaward, 
needs but a slight shock of earthquake to cant it 
over. 

From Sorrento my friends and I took donkeys 
to Massa, over a mountain commanding a series of 
magnificent sea-views, and at Massa we embarked 
for Capri, in a neat and roomy boat, fitted with 
both sails and oars, with a weather-beaten old skip- 
per of seventy-seven, and six stalwart, brown, bare- 
footed boatmen, in physique and in temper as fine a 
boat's crew as I ever saw. Capri is a nearly circu- 
lar island, about three miles in diameter, and con- 
sists of two closely contiguous mountains, with a 
very deep valley between them. Its coast is so 
precipitous as to furnish but two landing-places. 
The acclivities of the shore abound in the honey- 
combed rocks of which I have already spoken ; and 
though, to my experience, the sea within the arms 
of the Bay of Naples was as smooth as a lake under 
the summer sun, I have nowhere else seen more 
decisive tokens of its mordant rage, and that for 
from one to two hundred feet above its surface. 
The island is wholly of volcanic formation, and the 



190 NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

rocks, being of tufa, offer but feeble resistance, and 
are eaten into by the very spray. ^ 

The waves have hollowed out numerous caverns, 
w^hose mouths are covered when the sea is high, 
and are entered with difficulty in smooth water. 
The most remarkable of these is the Blue Grotto. 
The mouth of this is so low that it can be entered 
only in a small skiff, — the passengers lying pros- 
trate in the bottom of the boat. Within, we found 
an apartment about a hundred feet square and 
forty feet high. The light is so reflected through 
the opening, and refracted by the luminiferous up- 
per strata of the outside water, as to make the 
water within look like a sheet of lambent blue flame. 
A normal part of the entertainment is for the white- 
headed boatman, in his shirt and drawers, to swim 
round the boat, in which operation he loses all 
semblance of humanity, and seems a veritable 
demon sporting in a lake of fire. 

The valleys and ravines of the island are richly 
cultivated. The Capri wine has a world-wide fame. 
Besides the vineyards, there are large olive planta- 
tions, and extensive lemon and orange groves. The 
variety of cactus known as the prickly pear, here 
reaches an enormous size. It grows wild, is culti- 
vated in hedges, and is much prized by the natives 

1 The rocks on the margin of the Bay of Naples, perpetually recalled 
to me the participle exesus, so frequently applied to mountains and cliffs 
by writers who must have been familiar with these same scenes. 
Eaten out would be the very epithet which one would apply to them 
spontaneously. 



PALACE OF TIBERIUS. 191 

for its fruit. This is nearly as large as a Bartlett 
pear, has a sweet but insipid pulp, and, together 
with the seeds of the stone pine and fish from the 
sea, forms the chief diet of the poorer inhabitants, — 
some of whom told us, as designating the depth of 
their penury, that they could not procure macaroni 
oftener than once a week. 

After leaving the grotto, we landed on the beach, 
and ascended, by what seemed a staircase rather 
than a road, to the principal hotel, the Tiberio, 
near the town of Capri. Thence w^e took donkeys, 
each pushed and pulled by two or more black-eyed, 
olive-colored, bare-headed, and bare-footed women 
or girls, and mounted to the summit of the highest 
cliif. Here, seven hundred feet above the sea, are 
the ruins of the principal among the twelve palaces 
which Tiberius built on the island, and which were 
all demolished, by order of the Senate, after his 
death. There are few vestiges of the other eleven. 
Of the one which I visited, there remain vast foun- 
dations and substructures. Parts of the walls of 
the immense bath-rooms are still standing, as is 
much of the w^all of the great reservoir constructed, 
filled, and stocked as a fish-pond, in w^hich the fish 
are said to have been fattened on human flesh. 
Many of the apartments of the palace can be dis- 
tinctly traced, and some of the very beautiful 
mosaic floors are almost entire. We stood on the 
spot from which the tyrant used to have the victims 



192 NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

of his cruelty and jealousy thrown, over an almost 
perpendicular precipice, into the sea. 

We were called from our meditation on the many 
gloomy themes which the very name of Tiberius 
sufftrests, to an exhibition which the kindness of 
some of our party had pre-arranged for the common 
benefit. In a little hostelry near the palace and 
the precipice, several of our donkey women and a 
few swains loitering about the premises, performed 
for us, to the music of cymbals and castanets, the 
national dance called the Tarantella, — a wild, fan- 
tastic dance, conducted with so much energy, and 
with so much of what looked even like fanatical 
fervor, that I could not help thinking it came 
down by tradition from the ritual of some Pagan 
festival. 

On our sunset passage back to Massa, the prom- 
ise of a macaroni supper bribed our boatmen to 
sing; and once launched on the current of their 
boat-songs, they ceased not till we reached the 
beach, where our donkeys awaited us. Their voices 
were both sweet and strong, and it may have been 
happy for us that they were strong ; for we passed 
very near the rocks of the Sirens, and if those 
maidens have not deserted their old dwelling-place, 
we needed a powerful counterspell to drown their 
seducing melody. 

The next day we drove from Vietri to Amalfi, 
over a road said to be the most beautiful in the 
world. It lies along the Bay of Salerno, which is 



ROAD TO AMALFI. 193 

hardly inferior to the Bay of Naples. It follows, as 
closely as possible, the line of the coast. To call it 
serpentine would be to describe it inadequately ; 
for no serpent ever had so many and so deeply in- 
volved sinuosities. Thus the view — always grand 
— varies from moment to moment. The road is 
generally many feet above the sea, finely built, 
sustained by a very massive wall, and drained by 
frequent sluice-ways. It has, towering above it, 
rocks, clifPs, and crags of every conceivable style of 
grandeur and beauty, with not a few of fantastic 
form and poise, — rocks vermiculated by the rain, — 
cliffs perforated by deep caverns, once the retreat 
of brigands, now occupied by charcoal and lime 
burners, and sending jets of smoke and flame from 
their mouths, — crags over which swollen torrents 
leap in feathery cascades. But the main feature of 
this road, and the most charming, is the almost trop- 
ical vegetation that drapes all, from the water's edge 
to the summit of the cliffs. From every crevice 
in the rocks, hang long streamers of maidenhair, or 
of some other equally delicate fern. Gigantic 
growths of cactus shoot out from the seemingly 
soilless surface of the precipices. Above and be- 
low the road, is a seldom broken series of terraced 
gardens, — sometimes not less than thirty or forty 
terraces, one above another, — planted with orange 
and lemon trees, interspersed with the olive and 
the stone pine. The orange-trees are often trained 
on trellises and over horizontal frames, as grape- 

13 



194 NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

vines are, and thus cultivated, they seem even to 
surpass themselves in beauty, as the eye glances up 
and down into a succession of penthouses com- 
pletely roofed with ripe fruit and festooned with 
white flowers. 

Amalfi stands on a very bold and high promon- 
tory, which forms one of the arms of the Bay of 
Salerno. It was, in the Middle Ages, the seat of a 
principality, had flfty thousand inhabitants and 
great political importance, and was rendered mem- 
orable by the reputed discovery within its walls of 
the lost manuscript of Justinian's Pandects. It has 
not now more than one fifth of its former popula- 
tion, and probably has not a church or a dwelling- 
house that is less than three centuries old. It is 
an entirely unique place, — the most perfect extant 
type of the union of magnificence and squalor, osten- 
tation and discomfort, high walls and narrow spaces, 
which characterizes the mediseval cities of Italy. 
They are commonly built, for purposes of defence, 
on the top or brow of a hill. The streets are so 
narrow as almost never to admit a sunbeam. The 
houses are so dark that they are unfit for occu- 
pancy in the daytime. The churches are generally 
magnificent, and, in number and space, far exceed 
the needs of the present population ; and to these 
the women resort at all hours of the day, — un- 
doubtedly with a sincerely devotional purpose, but 
also, as it seems to me, impelled in part by the vui- 
acknowledged yearning of the aesthetic nature — 



AMALFI. 196 

chastened, but not killed — for light, cleanness, and 
beauty. 

The site of Amalfi is a declivity so steep that its 
streets are rude and irregular flights of stairs, over 
many of which a carriage could not be drawn, nor 
a well-nurtured horse induced to climb. Throuo;li 
the middle of the city tumbles a fierce torrent, which 
is arrested, on its downward way, to feed mag- 
nificent fountains, and which somehow succeeds in 
the creation of a great deal of mud, and does not 
make the town or the people seem less than the 
dirtiest' south of Switzerland. This torrent is the 
chief wealth of the place, furnishing water for nu- 
merous manufactories of macaroni, paper, and soap, 
— the former having a cosmopolitan reputation. 

The principal building is the Cathedral, which is 
very rich in beautiful mosaics and precious marbles, 
is almost Saracenic in its style, and has bronze 
gates of exquisite workmanship, which are known 
to be nearly nine hundred years old, and were prob- 
ably of Byzantine origin ; for Italy could not then 
have produced them. The crypt, which is itself a 
large church, contains a splendid monument to St. 
Andrew, with a colossal statue of him in bronze, 
and his reputed coffin, lighted by a perpetual lamp, 
and inclosed in a most richly wrought and gilded 
tomb. This church was, for many years, enriched 
by the dampness of the crypt. The moisture and 
mould that gathered rapidly upon the coffin, were 
sold under the name of '^ manna of St . Andrew ; ' 



196 NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

and not only was this manna deemed a specific in 
disease, but on one occasion, it was successfully 
employed in scattering a Turkish fleet. 

Returning from Amalfi, we made Salerno our 
next resting-place. Salerno is beautifully situated 
on a crescent-shaped beach, to which the principal 
streets run parallel, and from which the town slopes 
gently upward about half-way to the summit of a 
hill of moderate height, whence it is overlooked 
by the ancient castle of Robert Guiscard. The 
Salerno Cathedral has bronze gates as old as those 
at Amalfi. Besides these, its chief wealth consists 
in the spoils of Paganism. The inclosed quadrangle 
on which the Cathedral stands is entirely surrounded 
by columns stolen from Psestum, and there are sev- 
eral more within the building. In the quadrangle 
are no less than fourteen Pagan sarcophagi, cov- 
ered with mythological devices, and there are three 
within the church, adorned with some of the most 
scandalous scenes from classic fable, all of which 
have been appropriated for Christian sepulture. 

After breakfast, our landlord courteously invited 
us to walk in his garden, and, oddly enough, led 
the way up-stairs, through the attic and scuttle, out 
upon the almost flat roof, and thence into a garden 
on its level, the lowest of ten or twelve similar 
gardens on successive terraces. Here, just before 
Christmas, the first object on which my eye rested 
was an immense palm-tree, full of ripening dates. 
There were also flowers in profusion, especially 



PRESENT CONDITION OF ITALY. 197 

roses, camellias, and laurestlnas, — green peas, too, 
and lettuce ready for the table, and an abundance 
of ripe fruit. 

On the south of Naples, one seldom marks any 
striking peculiarities of costume, though sometimes 
the attire of the peasant-women arrests attention. 
But to the northwest of Naples, the peasantry 
(who are often seen in the city) retain the national 
costume, probably with no change for several 
centuries. The women wear a head-dress that 
looks like a folded white napkin, a stiff scarlet bod- 
ice, white sleeves, and a white or blue skirt. They 
are almost always seen with loaded baskets on their 
heads, walking erect as pines, with their hands at 
their sides, and with a majestic gait that w^ould 
have done no discredit to Juno. The men are less 
picturesque, and are often ragged and dirty. But 
they all wear breeches, long woollen stockings in 
numerous plaits or folds, and instead of shoes, 
pieces of untanned leather fastened to the feet by 
a complicated set of rope-yarn ligatures passing 
several times round the leg. Some old women 
wear this same foot-covering ; but most of the wo- 
men wear sandals and stockings. 

I will say a few words here, simply because I 
have no room for them elsewhere, on the present 
condition of Italy, — a subject which might well 
deserve a separate chapter or even a volume, but 
the adequate discussion of which demands more 



198 NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

than the cursory observation of a traveller. I might 
fill many pages with conjectures and speculations 
I can tell all that I know in two or three pages. 

That in an industrial point of view, the Kingdom 
of Italy is rapidly improving, there can be no doubt. 
Agriculture is more skillfully conducted than for- 
merly, and with largely augmented returns. In the 
whole of Southern Italy, cotton is extensively and 
profitably cultivated. Manufactures, both on a small 
and a large scale, by hand and by steam and water 
power, have increased, throughout the kingdom, 
with very great rapidity. The chief drawback to 
prosperity is the immense national debt, swollen 
enormously by the last war, with the oppressive 
taxation thus made necessary. This burden must 
be increased, in order to evade national bank- 
ruptcy ; for the present tax is inadequate to pay 
the expenses of the government and the interest 
on the debt. An insanely and ruinously large 
standing army at once enhances the imposts, and 
drains the industrial force of the kingdom. In 
1866-67 the rate of taxation in Italy bore to that 
in the States of the Pope the ratio of seven to 
two ; for, as the Papal church and government 
own about one third of the territory of those 
States, the income thence derived of course light- 
ens the burden on the independent proprietors. 
This condition of things is among the chief liinder- 
ances to the amalgamation of the Papal States with 
Italy, — the large tax-payers being almost unan- 
imously opposed to annexation. 



PROGRESS OF EVANGELIZATION. 199 

In Italy there is now universal religious tolera- 
tion. The monasteries were suppressed and secu- 
larized at the beginning of the last year, with 
suitable provision for the army of cenobites unfit 
for secular callinp-s. Protestantism is active at all 
the principal centres of influence, especially in 
Naples and Florence. In Naples I found two 
very well stocked Protestant bookstores, in one of 
which I saw stacks of several thousands of a next 
year's almanac, anti-papal in its text and its nu- 
merous wood-cuts, skillfully compiled, and for sale 
at about four cents of our money. There are at 
Naples, under Protestant auspices, ragged schools, 
and schools of a higher grade, at which several 
hundreds of children are receiving the rudiments 
of education, most of the pupils being from nomi- 
nally Roman Catholic families. 

At Florence, the American, English, Scotch, 
and Waldensian clergymen are very assiduous in 
the work of evano-ehzation. The Waldensian 
clergyman told me that he had held in surround- 
ing villages frequent public discussions with Rom- 
ish priests, in every case with decided advantage 
to what he deemed the cause of truth. In and 
about Florence there are many persons who, with- 
out formally forsaking Romanism, never attend 
church or go to the confessional, but hold on Sun- 
days neighborhood meetings, at which they read 
the Scriptures in the vernacular. There are no less 
than five hundred of these Scripture-readers in the 



200 NAPLES AND ITS VICINITY. 

city alone. As Protestants, we certainly have 
reason to rejoice in every such movement ; but in 
Florence there is special ground for congratulation, 
as the progress of Protestantism is not the subver- 
sion of an established faith, however erroneous it 
may be by our standard, but an aggression on a 
prevalent skepticism, which, especially among men 
of average intelligence, had become the prominent 
phasis of religious thought, and than which there 
can be no force more perilous to private virtue and 
to public tranquilhty and order. 



CHAPTER IX. 

POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

Destruction of Pompeii. — Its Streets, Shops, Houses, and Tem- 
ples. — National Museum at Naples. — Unrolling of Manuscripts. — 
Relics of the Buried Cities. — Pompeii a Commentary on the Classics. 

— Pisa. — The Cathedral. — The Baptistery. — The Leaning Tower. 

— The Campo Santo. — Perugia. — The Staffa Madonna. — Pietrc 
Perugino. — Bologna. — Raphael's St. Cecilia.— Guido's Madonna della 
Pieta. — The Campo Santo. 

On mj way from Salerno to Naples, I spent a 
day at Pompeii, alighting from the railway car- 
riage at the (so-called) Pompeii station, about two 
minutes' walk from the buried city. How strange 
this close juxtaposition of the railway, the type of 
the highest civihzation of the nineteenth century, 
with the arrested and embalmed civilization of the 
first ! 

Pompeii was but a second-rate provincial town, 
yet a place of great private wealth, splendor, and 
luxury, — probably an abode of elegant leisure for 
many persons of high social consideration, and, hke 
other towns in the neighborhood of Naples, a sea- 
side residence for citizens of Rome. Previously 
shaken and severely injured by two successive 
earthquakes, it was finally overwhelmed by dis- 



202 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

charges of ashes and pumice-stone from Mount 
Vesuvius, which fell, it would seem, mingled with 
rain, — the steam from the mountain being con- 
densed into rain over the doomed city. These 
moist showers of course precluded conflagration, 
though many objects were charred by the intensity 
of the heat. The roofs of the buildings, being 
generally of wood, were broken down by the 
superincumbent mass, which the walls of brick 
sustained uninjured. The air-tight covering over 
all the city has preserved entire many otherwise 
perishable objects, — in some instances in their orig- 
inal colors or but slightly faded, in others blackened 
or discolored. 

Horrible as was the catastrophe, there is reason 
to believe that it was attended with less loss of life 
than is commonly imagined. The city was buried, 
not at once, but by several successive showers ; 
and between the earliest of the series there may 
have been sufficient intervals for escape, and even 
for the removal of goods. That this was the case, 
is rendered probable by the fact that a very small 
number of skeletons have been found, and still 
more, by the scantiness of the amount of plate, 
jewelry, and coined money that has been disin- 
terred, as compared with the known wealth of the 
city. 

The surface of the whole region was essentially 
changed during that most eventful year in the 
history of Vesuvius ; and the site of Pompeii had 



STREETS OF POMPEII. 208 

passed away from the knowledge of man, when 
it was accidentally discovered a century and a half 
ago. Excavations were commenced about a cen- 
tury ago, and are still prosecuted by the Italian 
government, though with a slowness and languor 
quite characteristic of Southern Italy. 

Pompeii may be studied in detail, either on its 
own site, or in Naples. On its own site remain 
the streets, temples, theatres, houses, shops, with 
many beautiful mosaic pavements, and many ex- 
quisite frescos on the walls. But such mosaics 
and pictures as could be cut out from the floors 
and walls without injury, and all movable objects 
have been transported to the National Museum at 
Naples, wdiere they are well arranged, sedulously 
guarded, and kept open for the inspection of the 
curious, the pencils of copyists, and the critical in- 
vestigation of antiouaries. 

O J. 

The streets of Pompeii are very narrow, gen- 
erally with room for but one carriage - track. 
Were it not for deep marks of wheels in the pave- 
ments, we might imagine that wheeled carriages 
were not used there ; for it is not easy to say by 
what system the frequent collision of vehicles mov- 
ing in opposite directions, could have been pre- 
vented. Two long steps will suffice to cross 
the carriage-way ; the sidewalks are considerably 
raised ; and there are elevated stepping-stones in 
the middle of the street, on each side of which one 
wheel of every pair must have passed. The pave- 



204 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

ments are of blocks of lava, doubtless quarried in 
the suburbs of the city, which was built on the lava 
of some pre-historic eruption. 

Where the poor, if there were any, lived, it is 
hard to imagine ; for, though some of the houses that 
have been disinterred are small, there are few which, 
in their materials, structure, and ornaments, do not 
indicate the wealth or competence of the occu- 
pants. Perhaps the laborers and proletaries lived 
in the suburbs, under shelters so frail as to have 
mina;led Ions since with the stone and ashes that 
destroyed them. 

The buildings preserved are generally of brick, 
covered with a stucco which is, of course, broken 
and defaced. The shops may be distinguished by 
their marble counters and their painted signs. An 
eating-house — for such it must have been — has, 
on its walls, pictures of men in the act of dining, 
and of bottles and foaming beakers. There is an 
apothecary's shop, with a serpent for its sign, and 
with an inscription still clearly legible, indicating 
that such shops were, in the old time, as now, 
favorite lounging-places, — " Otiosis non est locus ; 
discede, morator;'^ " There is no room for idlers; 
loafer, begone." The buildings — both shops and 
nouses — seem to have been in blocks, and the 
only gardens, except those attached to suburban 
dwellings, were within the walls of houses, of 
necessity all of them small, most of them very 
small. 



POMPEIAN HOUSES. 205 

I will endeavor to explain the usual interior ar- 
rangement of the houses, and it is believed that the 
houses in Rome were built on essentially the same 
plan. 

The street-door opens upon the vestibule^ which 
consists of one or more not very commodious 
apartments. Opposite the street-door, a door opens 
into the atrium^ or court, which is the chief living- 
room, and generally contains more, and more 
sumptuous articles of ornament than any other 
apartment, having, in the better houses, a mosaic 
pavement and painted walls. The atrium is roofed, 
with an opening in the centre, toward which the 
roof is inclined on all sides. Under the opening is 
a tank for the reception of water from the sky, and 
here there is often a fountain fed by water-pipes 
from the public aqueduct. Behind the atrium is 
the tablinum, designed as a repository for the fam- 
ily archives, statues, portraits, and ancestral relics. 
Opening on either side of the atrium are smaller 
apartments. Behind the tablinum is the peristyle^ 
surrounded by porticos that rest on rows of equi- 
distant columns, and generally ornamented by stat- 
ues, vases, and other works of art. The peristyle, 
like the atrium, has an opening in the roof, with a 
tank, or, it may be, a fountain beneath it ; and this 
is the garden of the house, planted with trees, 
shrubbery, and flowers. From the peristyle open 
the lodging-rooms, and the eating-room, or tricli- 
nium^ so called from the three couches which were 



206 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

placed on three sides of the low table, the fourth 
side being left open for the removal of the dishes. 
Tlie lodging-rooms are mere kennels, just large 
enough for a couch, with no space for any other 
furniture, and with no light except from the peri- 
style, — an arrangement which indicates that the 
toilette must have been made elsewhere, — by the 
men, probably at the public baths. The triclinium 
is spacious, and in the richer houses, very highly 
ornamented. In addition to these apartments, there 
are various store-rooms, bath-rooms, sometimes a 
library, sometimes a chapel for the Lares and the 
Penates, sometimes saloons designed for festive or 
other purposes. In the less sumptuous houses, the 
atrium serves as the kitchen, the cooking being per- 
formed over braziers or stoves. In houses of a 
better sort, the kitchen is a separate apartment, in 
the rear of all the others. In very large houses, 
there is a second peristyle, with guest-chambers 
opening from it. 

Such is the general construction of the Pompeian 
house, of course with many deviations from the 
plan, and, in the richer dwellings, with additional 
apartments for various purposes of convenience or 
luxury. 

Most of the houses give evidence of but one 
story, though in some of them there are traces of 
staircases, both within and without the walls of the 
house. Moreover, we have reason to believe that in 
Rome the second story was always of wood, and if 



POMPEIAN HOUSES. 207 

this was the case m Pompeii, there may have been 
an indefinite number of second stories that have 
left no vestige of their existence. As most of the 
light for the house was received from above, it is 
probable that the second story, where it existed, did 
not wholly cover the first. There were often gar- 
dens occupying a part of the roof. On the lower 
story there were seldom, if ever, windows opening 
upon the street ; but there is ground for supposing 
that there were outside windows in the walls of sec- 
ond-story apartments. Panes of glass, even framed 
windows, have been found in Pompeii ; but it is 
hardly probable that they were in general use. 
Chimneys are seen in connection with bath-rooms 
and bake-houses, but none in private dwellings. 
There are traces, in a few instances, of the con- 
ducting of heat by pipes from the bath-room to the 
triclinium and other private apartments ; but prob- 
ably, braziers were used for the most part on the 
few days in the year when artificial heat was 
needed for comfort. The smoke from the culinary 
apparatus, if in the atrium, had its easy escape into 
the open air ; or, if in a separate apartment, it was 
suffered to find its own way through doors and 
windows. The chimney furnishes by no means the 
only instance, in which an invention of extended 
capacity of usefulness has been, for a long time, 
limited to the specific purpose to which it chanced 
to be first applied. 

The Pompeian house enables us to attain, in 



208 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

many respects, a clear comprehension of the Hfe of 
its inmates. The ideas embodied in that most com- 
plex and blessed of words, home^ can have had no 
place in such dwellings. There was nothing that 
could have served the purpose of a family apart- 
ment. The atriimi made the nearest approach 
to it, but that was public, — a common passage- 
way, and the place for a great deal of the house- 
hold work. Moreover, the rain-water cistern in 
the centre must have been a dissociating institu- 
tion, and the smoke, when the cooking took place 
there, still more so. Life must have been passed 
chiefly out of doors ; and the places of public 
amusement that have been already discovered, 
would have seated the whole population twice 
over. Retirement must have been as alien from 
the habits of the people as domesticity ; and we 
can hardly conceive of the more delicate tracery of 
character and the amenities of life as existing with- 
out the opportunity for both. 

While we find in Pompeii numerous tokens of 
the refinements of self-indulgent luxury, the moral 
character of the inhabitants must have been coarse 
and sensual. There were discovered not a few 
works of high art, especially in carving and stat- 
uary, — the subjects being generally the common- 
places of the Greek and Roman mythology ; but 
the paintings on the walls are, for the most part, 
voluptuous scenes, and some, which must have been 
perpetually before the eyes of whole families, are 



SKELETONS IN POMPEII. 209 

such as would be now tolerated only in the ac- 
knowledged haunts of profligacy. 

There have been excavated two theatres, and an 
amphitheatre almost entire, large enough to seat ten 
thousand spectators. Several temples have been 
laid open to daylight, all of them, I think, of the 
Corinthian order, and of very elaborate workman- 
ship. 

As I have intimated, but few remains, or vestiges 
of human bodies have been found. There are some 
skeletons, and some moulds of human forms, in the 
moistened and then hardened ashes in which they 
had their age-long sepulchre. In the house in the 
outskirts of the city, to which the name of Dio- 
mede has been attached, several skeletons were 
found, — that, no doubt, of the proprietor of the 
house, who perished in a passage leading to what 
may have been his garden, with the key of the gar- 
den-door in one hand and a purse of gold in the other, 
and those of eighteen members of the household 
who had taken refuge in the wine-cellar. Two of 
these were children. Most of the others were prob- 
ably females, as they had gold necklaces and brace- 
lets. It is supposed that they stayed to take care of 
their goods till the doors were hopelessly obstructed. 
This is one of the largest of the houses, and must 
have been a suburban villa. Between it and the 
city is the Street of the Tombs, — evidently a pub- 
lic cemetery, or at least one in use by families of 
wealth and distinction. The sepulchres that have 

14 



210 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, A.ND BOLOGNA. 

been opened here, are not unlike those that have 
been found in the neighborhood of Rome. 

In the Museum at Naples, I saw even more of 
Pompeii than among the roofless walls. There I 
was interested in nothing more than in the rolls of 
charred papjrus,^ of which there are hundreds, all 
more or less legible, though, to an unpractised eye, 
they might seem utterly worthless. Those that 
remain as they were found, look like cylindrical 
lumps of charcoal. The fragments of those that 
have been unrolled, which are all carefully pre- 
served, look like layers of cinders of burnt paper. 
The process of unrolling is, perhaps, the most del- 
icate mechanical operation ever undertaken. A 
narrow strip of goldbeater's skin is pasted upon 
two or three inches of the manuscript. This is 
attached by fine silken threads to a micrometer 
screw, which, being turned, slowly raises the por- 
tion of the manuscript in gearing at the time. 
This is read, copied, detached from the roll, and 
laid aside, and then the process is repeated for the 
next portion. I saw several of these machines in 
operation, and there is evidently work enough in 
hand to occupy many years. 

While these shrivelled scrolls seemed to bring me 
very near tlieir writers, I was even more vividly 
impressed by articles that spoke of the hurry and 

1 Most of these rolls are from Herculaneum. In the Museum, the 
relics of both cities are placed side by side, though so much the 
greater part of the articles, other than manuscripts, are from Pompeii 
as to make the collection preeminently Pompeian. 



POMPEIAN COOKING UTENSILS. 211 

dismay of tlie victims of this calamity, such as 
specimens of mieaten food, all ready for the table, 
and as well preserved as yesterday's dinner might 
be. There are uncut loaves of bread, some of 
them in precisely the sliape known to us by the 
name of Sally-lunn ; fowls trussed, and probably 
roasted ; a dish of the nuts which we call Enghsh 
walnuts, cracked for the table, together with smaller 
articles of diet, all easily recognized, the charring 
having been the only change wrought upon them. 

In the culinary department, in which very 
numerous utensils are preserved, it is astonishing 
how little alteration has been made. The gridirons, 
stevvpans, ladles, graters, skimmers, kettles (oftener 
of bronze than of iron), in shape closely resemble 
like vessels and instruments of to-day. There are 
jelly-moulds and formers for pastry, which might be 
used for a modern table without exciting; anv sur- 
prise. I saw moulds that represented chickens, 
hares, pigs, and hams, and a former evidently de- 
signed for the making of heart-shaped cakes like 
those which we have always been accustomed to 
see. The Pompeian gentleman boiled his eggs on 
his breakfast-table as we do; only, in the largest 
boiler that has been found, he could cook twenty- 
four at a time. Several quite elaborate cooking- 
stoves, — one with two openings for boilers, — have 
been discovered. It seems that careful housewives 
were then, as now, afraid of copper in certain 
branches of their art; for they had bronze stew- 
pans plated with silver on the inside. 



212 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

To pass from the kitchen to the shop, we have 
not only the common balance (hi-lanx^ the double 
scale), but steelyards of a considerable variety of 
style, all evidently adjusted with great accuracy, 
and some graduated with a nicety which could 
hardly be needed except in weighing the precious 
metals. Then there are compasses like those now 
in use, plumb-hnes, weights, measures of length, 
measures of liquids, and dry measures. The meas- 
ures are not, like ours, plain cylinders, but neat and 
pretty vases, and the weights are commonly busts 
of gods or emperors, figures of animals, or the 
form of some not unattractive object in nature> 
Some of the weights have their number of pounds 
stamped upon them. Among these is one in the 
form of a swine — the largest of the whole — with 
the letters P. c. Qpondo centum^ a hundred pounds). 
One of the weights has eme (buy) on one side, and 
HABEBis (you shall have) on the other. In thia 
department, enough has been discovered to repro- 
duce, were it lost, the entire metrical system of 
Southern Italy, which was probably identical with 
that of Rome. 

In no respect are the spoils of Pompeii richer 
than in lamps, lustres, and candelabra. Columns of 
the most graceful design, statues, figures in relief, 
forms of gods, men, and beasts, are employed to 
sustain the one, two, three, or at most, four burn- 
ers ; while the lamps themselves are made to 
assume fanciful shapes, among which the likeness 



POMPEIAN SACRED UTENSILS. 213 

of the sandalled foot is not infrequent. The sim- 
plest Pompeian lamp is graceful and beautiful, — a 
piece of coarse pottery, it may be, yet made as if 
an artist had sat at the wheel. But as for the lio-ht 
these lamps gave, the best that can be said of it is 
that it was fed by inodorous olive-oil. It would 
have been physically impossible to bring together as 
many of the ancient lamps as would shed, on any 
one square foot of surface, the quantity of light now 
given by a single argand or carcel burner. There 
is not a vestige of anything like the numerous 
contrivances by which, before gas came into gen- 
eral use, we had learned to enhance the illuminat- 
ing power of oil. 

Of sacred utensils the Museum contains a large 
and curious collection, embracing not only altars, 
censers, tripods, vases, and aspergeoires^ but also 
various instruments used for the butchery of vic- 
tims, and others of a more elaborate structure, for 
the examination of their entrails, — articles known 
to have been in the service, not of the shambles, 
but of the gods, from their having been found 
within sacred precincts. Withal there have been 
discovered not a few idols, or statues so situated 
that they must have been objects of worship, as 
also several of the magnificent couches on which 
the divinities were borne in public processions. In 
the Pompeian tem[)les, we may find the origin of a 
custom which still prevails in most of the Roman 
Catholic countries of Europe, — the votive offering 



214 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

and suspension near the altar, of the form of any 
part of the body which was the seat of disease, and 
was subsequently restored to soundness. The an- 
cients commemorated such cures in bronze and 
marble ; the less costly gratitude of our century 
employs wax instead ; but it is extended to almost 
all portions of the human frame, and I saw in the 
Strasburg Cathedral, miniature waxen faces, necks, 
backs, and windpipes, as well as hands and feet. 

Armor, both of defence and assault, is to be seen 
in the Museum. The Pompeians themselves were 
probably men of peace ; but there was, undoubted- 
ly, some military garrison or guard within the city. 

Various articles of harness and horse-furnitare 
present both resemblances and contrasts to the 
modern style of equipment. 

There is a large collection of surgical instru- 
ments, which throw much light on ancient surgery, 
and prove the antiquity of some of the most impor- 
tant, critical, and delicate operations of the present 
day, as well as the possession of an amply adequate 
apparatus, — in some cases, I am assured, not infe- 
rior to instruments now in use. Indeed, there was 
shown to me one instrument, — I forget for what 
purpose, — which has been adopted from Pompeian 
into the best modern practice. 

There are numerous specimens from Pompeii of 
articles of the bath and the toilette, — bathing tubs 
(like our own), mirrors (of polished steel), combs, 
dressing - cases, hair-pins, crochet - needles, — also 



LIFE IN POMPEII. 215 

specimens of the stylus, the pen, the inkstand, — 
also fish-hooks, musical instruments, dice, — all de- 
noting conveniences, habitudes, employments, rec- 
reations, closely corresponding to those appertaining 
to the most advanced luxury and refinement of the 
present time. There are locks and keys, not un- 
Jike ours, but more rude and clumsy, — hinges, 
house and table bells, knockers. There are open 
carriages, that seem to have been Hght, airy, and 
elegant. Then there are axes, hatchets, chisels, 
trowels, pincers, saws, vices, hammers, garden-tools, 
which show that the more common mechanical and 
industrial arts — skillfully exercised, as we know — 
had implements little, if at all inferior to those em- 
ployed by our own artisans and laborers. 

The workmanship of such articles of jewelry and 
personal ornament as have been found, is of the 
most elaborate kind, and the fashions are such as 
would not seem grotesque or inappropriate now. 

The mosaics and frescos from Pompeii, preserved 
in the Museum, as to their style of execution, are 
of the very highest character, indicating the most 
perfect command of the resources and methods of 
those arts respectively ; and of the magnificent col- 
lection of ancient statues, some of the choicest 
gems were dug up fi-om the buried city. 

Not to pursue an enumeration which might be- 
come wearisome, it may suffice to say that the city 
itself and the Museum, together furnish the data for 
a hardly less adequate conception of life in Pompeii, 



216 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

than Avere we carried back in retrospective vision to 
its palmy days. Moreover, it is mainly through 
the discoveries thus made that we are able to inter- 
pret many Latin words, to understand many of the 
allusions in the Latin classics, and to enter fully 
into the meaning and spirit of the lyric and epi- 
grammatic poets, and the satirists, who furnish in- 
deed the most copious commentary on the life of 
their times, but who sorely need on themselves pre- 
cisely such a commentary as was preserved by the 
mud-showers from Vesuvius. 

I propose to devote the residue of this chapter to 
some of the smaller Italian cities, among which Pisa 
may fitly claim our first regard. Pisa was, rather 
than is. In its venerable and not wholly decayed 
magnificence, it has an air of architectural stateli- 
ness, majesty, and amplitude, beyond all proportion 
to the numbers, wealth, business, and social impor- 
tance of its present inhabitants. Therefore its pal- 
aces look sombre, less because they are gloomy, 
than because we get stray hints of sunken fortunes 
and plebeian occupancy ; and the city seems de- 
serted, though there is no lack of people, certainly 
none of beggars, because we look in vain for the 
kind of people that belong there. The city lies on 
both sides of the Arno, which is here very rapid 
and very yellow, and is crossed by a ferry and 
three bridges. The most busy and cheerful streets 
are those on each side of the river. The Univer- 



CATHEDRAL OF PISA. 217 

sity of Pisa long had a world-wide celebrity. It 
lingers now in a sort of " death in life," and its 
buildings look more like the sepulchre than the cra- 
dle of learning. 

But were all the rest of the city burned or bur- 
ied, Pisa would still invite reverent and loving pil- 
grimage for its Cathedral, Baptistery, Bell-tower, 
and Campo Santo, — the four constituting an allied 
group, — the last three owing their existence and 
locality to the Cathedral. 

The Cathedral is one of the largest edifices of 
its kind, being more than three hundred feet long, 
and nearly two hundred and fifty feet in height to 
the top of the cross that surmounts it. It was 
built before the Gothic style was fully formed, and 
represents a transition era, — being half or more 
than half Byzantine or Greco-byzantine, yet with 
many Gothic features, and especially showing the 
change that took place during the fifty years 
occupied in its erection by becoming more and 
more Gothic as it rises, the lower arches being 
round, the upper pointed, and corresponding differ- 
ences being clearly traceable between other details 
of the lower and those of the upper parts of the 
edifice. This apparent welding of the two styles 
— to be seen in all the remaining parts of the orig- 
inal building — is rendered more striking by the 
fact that, nearly three centuries ago, the cupola and 
the upper portions of the nave were destroyed by 
fire, and rebuilt more purely Gothic than before. 



218 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

What is worthy of emphatic mention is, that one 
feels no sense of unfitness in this minghng of styles 
here ; nor is it always easy to define the precise 
point at which the one ceases, and the other begins. 
It is as if the Gothic had grovvn naturally out of 
the Byzantine in the architect's own mind and 
work. 

The exterior is remarkable equally for the grand- 
eur of its proportions and the inequality of its fin- 
ish, — there being some parts constructed of mosaic 
work and the most rare and costly stones, while in 
others, the builders availed themselves of any ma- 
terials on which they could lay their hands. Blocks 
of stone, of unequal size or of unlike tint, are laid 
side by side, or over one another. In some places 
stones from edifices of the classic ages, with Latin 
inscriptions, and even with idolatrous devices, are 
wrought into ^he structure, thus preserving not a 
few valuable antiquities. The front facade is un- 
surpassed in magnificence, having five successive 
stories of massive arches supported by rows of 
Corinthian columns. The bronze gates are most 
richly wrought with scenes from the life of the 
Saviour and that of the Virgin Mother. These, 
however, were made after the fire. One of their 
predecessors which escaped the fire, is preserved in 
one of the transepts, and is probably the earliest 
extant specimen of Italian bronze-work, this side of 
the classic ages. It presents scenes from the Gos- 
pel history, with no reference to perspective, in the 



THE BAPTISTERY AT PISA. 219 

rudest taste and the coarsest workmanship. It is 
no doubt between seven and eight hundred years 
old. 

The interior is finished throughout, and the de- 
tails are such as to enhance the visitor's sense of 
the vastness of the structure, though the effect is 
somewhat impaired by the glitter of the profusely 
gilded ceiling. There are no less than twelve al- 
tars, said to have been constructed from designs by 
Michael Angelo, and certainly, in their simplicity, 
massiveness, and grandeur, worthy of his genius. 
There are also, in a profusion of pictures and stat- 
uary, many w^orks of art that have an extended 
celebrity. But, while I enjoyed these, I was yet 
more gratified to see, still swinging from the same 
point in the ceiling, the bronze lamp whose oscilla- 
tions are said to have suggested to Galileo the the- 
ory of the pendulum. 

Detached from the Cathedral, as is always the case 
in Italy, but very near it, is the Baptistery, which 
seems to me, though less grand than many others, 
the most faultlessly and exquisitely beautiful build- 
ing I ever saw. It looks small by the side of the 
Cathedral ; yet it is about a hundred feet in diame- 
ter, and a hundred and eighty feet in height. It 
is circular, and surmounted by a dome. In the 
centre is an octagonal white marble font designed 
for immersion, with four smaller fonts, adapted to 
the present usage of the Romish church, at alternate 
angles of the larger. From the centre of the larger 



220 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

rises a shaft on which stands a statue of John the 
Baptist. The pulpit in this building is deemed su- 
perior in design and execution to any other struc- 
ture of the kind in existence. It is hexagonal, and 
stands on seven columns of as many different kinds 
of stone. These columns rest alternately on crouch- 
ing human figures and on figures of beasts. On 
five sides of the pulpit (the sixth being used for 
the staircase and door), are carved scenes repre- 
senting the Nativity, the Worship of the Magi, the 
Presentation in the Temple, the Crucifixion, and 
the Last Judgment. 

The Campanile, or bell-tower, of the Cathedral, 
also detached, as is customary in Italy, is the cel- 
ebrated Leaning Tower. J think there can be no 
doubt that this was intended to be perpendicular, 
and that it began to settle unequally while it was 
in building ; for, above a certain height, the columns 
on one side are longer than on the other, — with 
the design to make the upper part deflect from a 
perpendicular as little as possible. The ground in 
the neighborhood is porous, and almost marshy ; 
and the Cathedral itself has suffered so much from 
this cause that there is not a single vertical line in 
it, and all the nicer architectural correspondences 
are disarranged. The tower looks in as falling a 
condition in its own form as in photograph, and in 
ascending it or standing on its top, it is impossible 
for one to feel as perfectly secure as he knows him- 
self to be, A plumb-line let down from the de- 



THE CAMPO SANTO OF PISA. 221 

pressed side of the roof, would reach the ground thir- 
teen feet outside of the base ; but this inchnation, 
great as it is, niiglit be doubled, and still the centre 
of gravity would remain within the base. The tower 
is about a hundred and eighty feet high, and has 
eight stories, each story consisting of a circular col- 
onnade, with rounded arches between the columns, 
thus constituting a series of open galleries. It has 
little ornament except these columns and arches ; 
but they are wonderfully beautiful in their propor- 
tions and details. It is by far the most sumptuous, 
tasteful, elegant, and impressive structure of its kind 
in Southern Europe. In the upper story are seven 
bells, the largest — placed on the least depressed 
side of the tower — weighing more than twelve 
thousand pounds. Two of the larger bells were 
rung for vespers while I was on the bell-deck, and I 
found that not the slightest vibration or jar was 
communicated to the tower. The view from the 
top is very extensive, but flat and tame. 

The Campo Santo — the remaining building in 
this group — is an inclosed gallery running along 
the four sides of an oblong court more than four 
hundred feet long, and a third as wide. It was 
built in the twelfth century for the reception of 
earth brought from the Holy Land for use in 
burial. Into it have been removed numerous mon- 
uments from the Cathedral ; old Roman tombs and 
sarcophagi have been adopted in large numbers ; 
curious mortuary inscriptions and memorials of 



222 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

various kinds, classic and mediaeval, have been de- 
posited there ; and there are modern monuments 
of wonderful beauty by the best artists of the last 
and the present century. The history of sepulture, 
and the various phases of art connected with it in 
Italy for two thousand years and more, might be 
pretty thoroughly studied within those walls. While 
the Campo Santo yields to Westminster Abbey as 
to personal associations, it very greatly surpasses it 
as to the diversity, and the artistical beauty and in- 
terest of its contents. The walls were frescoed by 
artists of renown ; and, though they have suffered 
excessively from dampness, and in many places the 
outer pellicle of plaster has peeled off, the paint- 
ings may still be traced without difficulty. Among 
them is an invaluable and most expressive series of 
scenes from the Book of Job, by (riotto. 

Besides this group, the most remarkable building 
in Pisa is a little chapel on the river-side, dedicated 
to Santa Maria della Spina, which is a perfect gem 
of its kind, and entirely unique. It has the pro- 
portions of a Grecian temple, is perhaps forty feet 
by twenty, of white marble ; and its entire exterior 
surface is so covered with statuary and figures in 
alto-relievo, that hardly an inch of naked wall can 
be seen, so that it looks, not like a building, but 
like a solid mass of white-robed saints and angels. 

Perugia is one of the most charming places in 
Italy. Its site is more than beautiful, — it is glo- 



ART IN PERUGIA. 223 

rious. It lies on an uneven and rugged eminence, 
with sweet valleys below, a glimpse of the Tiber 
in the distance, a splendid range of nearer hills, 
and beyond them some of the higher snow-crowned 
peaks of the Apennines. In ascending to the city, 
the horses of our diligence were reinforced by a 
pair of the magnificent snow-white oxen of the 
country, of the breed of which we have read so 
much — and not too much — about their majestic 
mien and gait in the sacrificial pomp of the Ro- 
mans, in which they went to the slaughter with 
gilded horns, and crowned with festal garlands. 
^\ The city is wholly mediaeval, quaint, strange, 
(dilapidated, with vestiges of former grandeur every- 
where, yet evidently with little remaining wealth, 
except of art. Most of the streets are too narrow 
for carriage-ways, and are frequently darkened by 
arches thrown across them from house to house. 
The city is surrounded by very old walls, with 
massive arches over the portals. Some of the por- 
tals are Etruscan, and probably bear a date prior to 
the building of Rome. One of them has an in- 
scription, indicating that it was placed in its present 
site under the auspices of Augustus Cassar. A 

The churches are very magnificent, and mil of 
memorable works of art. The Cathedral, exter- 
nally, is very spacious, but in no other way remark- 
able ; within, it has a vast wealth of frescos, pictures, 
and carved work. It has a singularly beautiful pul- 
pit on the outside, opening from within, — designed 



224 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

for preaching to out-of-door congregations. In tlie 
Church of St. Peter are some of the finest paint- 
ings in the world. In the town-hall are frescos 
hardly surpassed in beauty. In a private palace is 
the StafFa Madonna of Raphael, the earliest of his 
celebrated Madoinias. It is a small cabinet pic- 
ture, representing the Virgin with a book, and the 
child looking into it as she reads. The expression 
both of mother and child is heavenly ; and had not 
Raphael afterwards often surpassed himself on the 
same theme, this would, I cannot but believe, have 
been peerless among the Madonnas. 

In the University is a very rich collection of pic- 
tures, and there and in the churches are to be seen 
the master-works (and they are very many) of 
Pietro Perugino, a native of this place, and the 
preceptor of Raphael. His paintings are marvel- 
lously soft and sweet. His saints and angels have 
countenances full of love and worship. His Madon- 
nas have the presage of the blended majesty and 
grace, which his greater pupil no doubt caught 
from him, and carried to perfection. 

There is, in the University, a very rich museum 
of Etruscan antiquities, comprising sarcophagi and 
sepulchral urns, together with pottery, some of it 
in forms which the finest art of our day can ap- 
proach only by copying them, some of it in forms 
closely resembling our homeliest earthen ware, and 
offering even the precise prototypes of our bread- 
pans and bean-pots. 



ASPECT OF BOLOGNA. 225 

I saw at Perugia the most beautiful of" Italian sun- 
sets, — tlie clouds so luminous that they seemed con- 
densed rainbows, and the whole firmament bathed 
in the purest azure. 

Bologna has less of the aspect of decay than most 
of the other smaller Italian cities, not because it 
contains many Jiew buildings, but because most of 
the buildings look as if they were fully occupied, 
and because in every street there are tokens of in- 
dustry and enterprise. The streets are wider than 
in the Italian cities generally. In the greater part 
of the streets the second stories of the houses pro- 
ject over arcades which form a covered sidewalk. 
There are many splendid palaces within the walls ; 
on the hills in the rear of the city are beautiful vil- 
las ; and from these hills the view is charming, em- 
bracing numerous villages, and between them farm- 
houses, lying so near together as to indicate a mi- 
nute subdivision of the land, and a densely peopled 
country. This is one of the particulars in which 
Tuscany has the advantage of Southern Italy, 
where the land is held in large estates, and so oc- 
cupied and cultivated as to yield profitable returns 
with a minimum of labor. 

There are in Bologna more than a hundred 
churches. The largest of these, but little smaller 
than St. Peter's, is consecrated to St. Petronius, — 
a name which had for me no saintly associations, 
the only person of the name with whom I was 

15 



226 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

acquainted being Petronius Arbiter, whose works 
breathe any odor but that of sanctity. 

The chief attraction of Bologna is the gallery 
of the Academy of Fine Arts. It is ftill of mas-^ 
ter-works, and contains more of Guido's pictures 
than are to be found anywhere else. The greatest 
picture there is Raphael's St. Ceciha. St. Cecilia, 
the central figure, is the very impersonation of 
sainthood ; radiantly beautiful, but with the beauty 
of holiness ; young, but with the maturity of pro- 
found experience, equally of earthly trial and of 
heaven-breathed peace. She is surrounded by a 
group, in which are St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Au- 
gustine, and Mary Magdalene, all so subordinated 
to her in the action of the picture, that she stands 
forth as the one queenly presence. She is holding 
her lyre, but as if she knew not that it was in 
her hand, and her face is turned upward in rapt 
devotion. Above the group is a clear blue sky, in 
the midst of which, surrounded by softly luminous 
rays, is a choir of angels, their lips parted as if in 
singing. They hold before them an open music- 
book, which is not angelic ; yet it is so gracefully 
disposed, that, instead of marring, it enhances the 
beauty of the picture, as it helps to give concen- 
tration to the eyes, and to define the parted lips of 
the angels. 

Hardly inferior, and among the few great works, 
the seeing of which is an epoch in one's life, is the 
Madonna della Pieta of Guido. It is a very largo 



CAMPO SANTO OF BOLOGNA. 227 

picture, and more vividly colored than any other 
of the works of the old masters. In the upper 
part of the canvas the dead body of the Saviour 
is laid at fall length on a table, and the Holy 
Mother is bending over it, with a weeping angel 
on either side. Never have I seen the represen- 
tation of so profound grief: yet the angels, with 
whom it is hard to associate the thought of sorrow, 
seem none the less angels ; for their countenances 
and attitudes are expressive, not of earthly weak- 
ness, but of heavenly pity and sympathy. Below 
are the four patron saints of Bologna, all exquisitely 
painted, yet not so as to draw off attention from 
the group above, but rather by the contrast — if 
such a contrast can be — of lesser with greater 
majesty, to add to the solemn beauty and grandeur 
of the principal figures. 

About a mile from one of the gates of the city, 
is the Campo Santo cemetery. A covered way 
under arcades leads to it, — some of the arcades 
having buildings behind them, but the range con- 
tinuing without a break where there are no build- 
ings. Behind some of the arcades nearest to the 
cemetery are shops for the sale of wine and con- 
fectionery, — one of which bears the name of the 
Orphan's Tavern, suggesting a source of consolation 
not strictly canonical. The cemetery consists of the 
cloisters of an immense old Carthusian convent, 
extended and modernized. Within is a series of 
arcades built round a hollow square, which is 



228 POMPEII, PISA, PERUGIA, AND BOLOGNA. 

crossed by other series in various directions. The 
walls of these arcades, which are, perhaps, ten or 
twelve feet thick, are pierced with oven-shaped 
niches for the reception of coffins, and when a 
deposit is made the niche is closed. The monu- 
ments are either slabs let into the walls, frescos 
upon them, sculpture in relief upon them, or struc- 
tures built close against them. A few onlv of the 
more illustrious dead have monuments that stand 
out in the centre of a cloister. The most conspic- 
uous among these is the monument of Joachim 
Murat, Napoleon Bonaparte's king of Naples, 
whose statue does ample justice to his soldierlike 
countenance and bearing;. Connected witli the 
cloisters is a church, whose architecture is fally 
worthy of its surroundings. This cemetery is by 
far the most beautiful I have ever seen ; and its 
method is to be preferred, I think, to that of our 
rural cemeteries, as it may be visited without ex- 
posure at all times ; while, in our country, funer- 
als and visits to burial-places are not infrequent 
causes of fatal disease. 



CHAPTER X. 

ANCIENT ROME. 

First Impressions. — The Seven Hills. — The Capitol. — The Forum 
Romanum. — Trajan's Forum and Column. — Baths of Caracalla. — 
The Colosseum. — The Pantheon. — Aqueducts. — The Tarpeian Rock. 

— The Mamertine Prison. — The Cloaca Maxima. — Ancient Sculpture. 

— Inscriptions. — Church of St. Clement. — The Catacombs. — Ha- 
drian's Villa. — Tivoli. — The Campagna. — The Tiber. — Vestiges 
of the ancient Roman Race. — Saturnalia on the Eve of the Epiphany. 

Rome is, of all cities, the most difficult to be 
described. It is three cities in one, — the an- 
cient, which has indeed its own waste regions 
densely peopled by tradition and memory, but of 
which there are not a few monuments amidst the 
life of to-day ; the mediaeval, with its churches, 
palaces, and ecclesiastical pomp ; the modern, with 
its filth, squahdness, and beggary. The mediaeval 
is, in numerous instances, built over the ancient, 
and constructed from its spoils ; the modern has 
defaced and desecrated both the ancient and the 
mediseval in pretending to utilize them. 

The first view of Rome is not attractive. The 
Piazza di Spagna, the principal square, is indeed 
bright and beautifiil ; the Corso, though too nar- 



230 ANCIENT ROME. 

row, is a sliowy, stately street ; the Pincian Hill, 
in trees, shrubbery, and magnificent views, is un- 
surpassed among the drives and promenades of Eu- 
rope ; the vast inclosure of St. Peter's is worthy 
of the world's capital ; and there are many other 
spots in which we feel profoundly the indestruc- 
tible grandeur of the Eternal City; but degeneracy, 
dilapidation, and decay are the initial expression 
of Rome as a whole. Yet, as the traveller lingers 
there, the old glory revives ; its tokens multiply ; 
its spell takes an ever stronger hold on sense, and 
thought, and emotion ; and he who remains there 
a week, feels as if months and years would not 
suffice for objects which crowd perpetually on his 
curiosity, when seen, crave to be studied, and when 
studied, seem worthy only of being seen the more. 

As regards ancient Rome, I was, at the outset, 
disappointed in the Seven Hills, which, though 
they all are marked elevations, are by no means so 
high as I had imagined, — not much higher, indeed, 
than the three hills on which Boston stands have 
been within my remembrance. But they, probably, 
were higher. There can be no doubt that of the 
earth and gravel which have buried much of the 
old city to the depth of several feet, while a part 
came from the river, a part is the debris of the 
hills, whose soil ceased to be held in its place by 
the masonry that once covered it. But the eleva- 
tions grew daily to my eye, till the Capitoline Hill 
at length became to the sight, no less than to the 



THE CAPITOLINE HILL. 231 

thought, the august and solemn height which it was 
when it enshrined the insignia of the Repubhc and 
the Empire. 

The Capitoline Hill is approached by a steep 
ascent, and its summit is now occupied by three 
palaces designed by Michael Angelo, making three 
sides of a quadrangle. On the fourth side is a 
broad flight of steps, guarded at the foot by two 
Egyptian lions placed there by one of the Popes, 
and at the top by colossal statues of Castor and 
Pollux standing by their horses, — works un- 
doubtedly of high antiquity, recovered from the 
Ghetto, where very many of the choicest relics 
of the classic ag-es were lono^ buried. In the cen- 
tre of the quadrangle, — its third position, — is 
a colossal statue in bronze of Marcus Aurelius, 
There are various remains of ancient art in the 
open square and the surrounding palaces, — almost 
all of them brought thither from other parts of the 
city. The Dying Gladiator, w^hich I described in a 
former chapter, is here. The Venus of the Capitol 
is peerless in beauty, combining with consummate 
symmetry, grace, and loveliness, the freedom and 
energy which belonged to the ideal of woman 
not yet limited and enfeebled by the restraints of 
artificial life. Here too, is the Faun, with which 
all have been made familiar by Hawthorne's 
Marble Faun, and which fully justifies his descrip- 
tion of rare human beauty, conjoined with an ex- 
pression of blended simplicity and cunning which 



232 ANCIENT ROME. 

somehow bears tlie beastly mark, though it is im- 
possible to say to what beast it belongs. Here are 
also series of busts of emperors and of distin- 
guished men, — many of them so characteristic 
as to attest their own genuineness. Here too is a 
mosaic of four doves drinking, found in Hadrian's 
Villa, which seems id be the very one described 
with admiration by Pliny,^ — one of the finest 
specimens of workmanship in any age, and formed, 
not, as the Roman mosaics now are, of bits of por- 
celain manufactured for the purpose, but of actual 
stones so small that a hundred and sixty of them 
may be counted in a square inch. 

Directly below the Capitoline Hill, between it and 
the Palatine, is the Roman Forum. Here the arch 
of Septimius Severus stands almost entire, and there 
are portions of the colonnades of three temples, 
with large masses of substructures and fragments. 
The geography of the Forum can be distinctly 
traced, and the ruins that remain are still magnifi- 
cent in their dismantled and desolate condition, in- 
dicating what an immense wealth of genius and art 
must have been grouped around the assembled mul- 
titudes that thronged this vast area. In standing 
there, one wants to reperuse on the spot all Roman 
history, and still more the orations of Cicero, and 
in reconstructive fancy, to restore as he may, the 

1 " Mirabilis ibi columba bibens et aquam umbra capitis infuscans; 
apricantur ali® scabentes sese in canthari labro." Pliny calls works 
in mosaic lithostrata. 



TRAJAN'S FORUM AND COLUMN. 233 

objects of the nation's pride to which the great or- 
ator so often pointed, and from which so many of 
his most forceful ilhistrations were drawn. 

On the Palatine Hill, the Palace of the Caesars 
has left wide-spread but shapeless ruins, with only 
here and there a fragment, from which possibly a 
scientific architect might construct a pillar or an 
edifice, as our great naturalist builds up a fish from 
a single scale, but which to me — however impres- 
sive — gave but a famt idea of buildings, in extent, 
splendor, and beauty as far transcending the most 
sumptuous palaces now existing, as did the Empire 
thence governed surpass its individual provinces, — 
themselves now empires. On this hill are shown 
the various sites connected with the history of 
Romulus and Remus, and the cradle of the Roman 
Republic, — of course without any warrant or 
strong probability in favor of their genuineness. 
Not so, however, with the sites of the houses of 
Cicero and Clodius, which vividly recalled the pas- 
sage in one of Cicero's orations, in which he says 
to Clodius, " I will build my house higher, not that 
I may look down on you, but that I may intercept 
your view of the city which you have sought to 
ruin." ^ 

The Forum of Trajan is several feet below the 
present level of the surrounding streets. The whole 
space has been excavated, and while the upper 

1 " Tollam altius tectum, non ut ego te despiciam, sed ne tu aspicias 
urbem earn, quam delere voluisti." 



234 ANCIENT ROME. 

portions of the columns were destroyed or worked 
up many centuries ago, the portions that were un- 
derground remain, so that the forum is now studded 
all over with the bases and stumps of marble and 
granite pillars, which must have been of unsur- 
passed beauty. In the centre of this truncated 
stone grove stands, where it has stood for seventeen 
centuries and a half, Trajan's Column, of white 
marble, somewhat discolored, but otherwise in per- 
fect preservation. It is a hundred feet high, and 
from the base to the capital there is a spiral ar- 
rangement of figures in relief, as if on a scroll 
wound around the column. Here are not far from 
twenty-five hundred human figures, besides for- 
tresses and military objects of various kinds, — the 
whole constituting a sculptured history of Trajan's 
successful and triumphant campaigns on the Dan- 
ube. The column, though combining several or- 
ders, is graceful in its proportions, and the carved 
work could not be more skillfully executed. It was 
originally surmounted by the colossal statue of 
Trajan, with a globe in his hand. The globe re- 
mains, and is deposited in the Museum of the 
Capitol ; and instead of the Emperor is a colossal 
St. Peter, in bronze heavily gilded. Not unlike 
this in style, with a similar scroll-like record of mil- 
itary achievements, is the Column of Marcus An- 
toninus, which is now crowned with a colossal 
statue of St. Paul. 

These are the most nearly perfect of all the 



THE BATHS OF CARACALLA. 235 

monuments of antiquity. There are many single 
columns of temples, and clusters of two or three 
columns, remaining detached from all other build- 
ings, looking as if ready to fall, yet as beautiful as 
they ever were, and evincing a purer taste than 
can be found in any of the structures of mediaeval 
or modern Rome. There are also many remains 
of ancient buildings, which have been made parts 
of modern buildings, — pillars, cornices, large por- 
tions of houses and temples, built into public edi- 
fices, private dwellings, even bakers' shops ; col- 
umns of Pagan temples transplanted into churches ; 
fragments of old walls incorporated into new walls ; 
portions of imperial baths utilized for various pur- 
poses of the present day. 

The baths of ancient Rome are among the most 
majestic ruins in and about the city. Luxury had, 
in the days of the emperors, reached such a height, 
that bathing, and the amusements, relaxations, and 
personal indulgences connected with it were among 
the chief occupations of hfe. Several of the em- 
perors built baths more extensive than their pal- 
aces, and covering many acres. The ruins of the 
Baths of Caracalla are nearly a mile in circuit. 
This vast establishment included halls for every kind 
of game and recreation, a large theatre, a temple, a 
picture-gallery, together with arrangements on the 
most extensive scale for hot and cold bathing, and 
for all the luxurious accompaniments of the bath, 
which were introduced as Rome became more and 



236 ANCIENT ROME. 

more like the cities of the East. There was room 
here for sixteen hundred bathers at a time. 
Enough of the foundations, walls, and partitions of 
the various apartments remains, for the identification 
of their several styles and uses, and many of the 
mosaics are so nearly perfect, that the contour of 
the figures on the floor can be distinctly traced. 
Some of the choicest statues now^ in the galleries 
were found here. Nothing excites so much admi- 
ration of the wealth and grandeur of the ancient 
city as this forest of brick and mortar. Such struc- 
tures as these were undoubtedly meant by the em- 
perors who built them, as the purchase of their lives. 
By throwing open these costly and sumptuous places 
of resort to the people, they procured an amnesty 
which would not otherwise have been granted them 
for tyranny, ferocity, and licentiousness ; staved off 
for a season the inevitable massacre w^hich common- 
ly put a period to their reigns ; and even gained a 
certain popularity among those of their subjects 
who were not near enouo-h to the throne to be its 
expectant victims. 

My first view of the Colosseum was by the light 
of the full moon, and I am sure that in the face of 
no work of man can the solemn grandeur of that 
occasion ever be repeated in my experience. The 
Colosseum stands apart from the city, as such a 
ruin should ; and Rome is so very dimly lighted, 
and so still by night, that there was only a faint 
glimmer from the streets, and hardly a sound of 



THE COLOSSEUM. 237 

voice or wheel to remind us of the Hving world. 
And then such deep arches, such heavy shadows, 
such dreary vaults and passages, such sudden flashes 
of moonlight as one emerges from them, such 
weird, ghostlike forms as visitors, guides, and senti- 
nels appear to one another, such sombre memories 
of the night-side of humanity as haunt the scene, 
and seem to project themselves visibly on that once 
bloody arena, — all conspire to make the first night- 
visit a most noteworthy epoch. 

The Colosseum was so built as to seat nearly a 
hundred thousand spectators. It is an elhptical 
amphitheatre, nearly circular, with tiers of seats 
rising rapidly one above another, to the number of 
sixty or eighty, — ■ each tier so elevated as to permit 
its occupants to look over the heads of those next 
below them. The seats surrounded an arena lar^e 
enough for the conflicts of a little army of wild 
beasts or the manoeuvres of several hundred glad- 
iators. The building had no roof; but the specta- 
tors were protected by awnings. Externally more 
than a hundred and fifty feet high, it consisted of 
four stories, the piers or pilasters in the lower story 
being of the Doric order ; those in the next, of the 
Ionic ; those in the two upper, of the Corinthian. 
This was doubtless desio-ned with a view to the 
adaptation of the Doric to the sustaining of heavy 
weights, the lightness and airiness of the Corinthian, 
and the position of the Ionic as midway between the 
two and partaking of the properties of both. Sev- 



238 ANCIENT ROME. 

eral of the palaces of Rome have been built from 
the pillage of this structure ; but the spoiler's hand 
has now been arrested. Rome lives by its ruins, 
and cannot afford to have them further tampered 
with. The Colosseum shows, by daylight, patches 
of modern masonry, which have been inserted to 
hold the old together ; and the Pope, partly in 
order to make its dilapidation an act of sacrilege, 
about a century ago consecrated the entire edifice 
as a church, in memory of the numerous martyrs 
— St. Ignatius among the rest — who, from this 
arena, passed through a bloody death to heaven. 
There is now a rude pulpit in the centre, with 
stations for worship in various parts of the arena ; 
and I never was there in the day-time without see- 
ing some suppliant kneeling at these specially sa- 
cred spots in their order. 

The flora of the Colosseum is said to be gor- 
geous in summer, and the species that may be 
found there amount to several hundred. I saw a 
few hardy species in full bloom in mid-winter. 

Among the ancient edifices of Rome, the only one 
that can be said to approach complete preservation, 
is the Pantheon, which was, as its name implies, the 
house of Roman hospitality for the gods of all na- 
tions, was saved, no doubt, by its consecration as a 
Christian church early in the seventh century, and 
has sustained no essential change. It is a rotunda, 
with a very much flattened dome, of a height from 
the floor about equal to the diameter of the build- 



THE AQUEDUCTS. 239 

ing. It has seven deep recesses, containing altars, 
and most of them, tombs, the tomb of Raphael be- 
ing of the nmnber. It is hghted wholly through 
an opening in the dome, and is abundantly wa- 
tered through it, the floor, which is of porphyry 
and other precious stones arranged in patterns of 
great beauty, being as wet on a rainy day as the 
pavement outside. It is also liable to be overflowed 
whenever the Tiber rises above its banks, — a habit 
to which it is as much addicted as it w^as in the 
days of Horace. The portico of the Pantheon is 
second only to the Parthenon, among the extant 
specimens of temple architecture. It consists of 
sixteen Corinthian columns of granite, with marble 
capitals and bases, eight of them in front, and the 
other eight fillino; in the sides. 

Ancient Rome was supplied with water by sev- 
eral aqueducts, from sources the most remote of 
which was nearly fifty miles distant. Among the 
most picturesque ruins are these structures, one of 
which has remained entire, and furnishes the best 
water the city has ; and others have, in some places, 
long lines of arches still tight and strong, needing 
only the rebuilding of short connecting portions to 
make them again serviceable. The Roman aque- 
ducts w^ere carried as nearly on a level as was 
possible ; for the ancients knew not that water 
conducted under ground would rise to the same 
level with its source. Accordingly, the elevation 
of these works above the low, marshy ground of 



240 ANCIENT ROME. 

the Campagna makes them often by far the most 
conspicuous objects in the landscape, and constantly 
deepens our admiration of a building power whose 
structures seem hardly less enduring, and have prob- 
ably been less impaired by eighteen or twenty cen- 
turies, than the Alban Hills. 

The Tarpeian Rock still faces the Forum, and 
presents a precipice not less than seventy feet in 
height; though, with gardens above and below, it 
has lost much of the terrific aspect which it bore, 
no doubt, when it was the place of execution for 
traitors. 

A church is now built over the Mamertine 
Prison, and the descent to this horrible dungeon 
is from the porch of the church. The prison was 
constructed by Ancus Martins, and is in the heavi- 
est style of Etruscan architecture. It consists of 
two subterranean cells, one above the other. It is 
believed that St. Paul and St. Peter were confined 
there, and the upper cell is now dedicated as a 
chapel to St. Peter. From beneath the earthen 
floor of the lower cell bubbles up a limpid spring 
of living water, which is referred to in Roman his- 
tory as having existed at an earlier date, but 
which, according to the church tradition, welled 
up miraculously to supply St. Peter with the means 
of baptizing his converted jailors. On the stair- 
case leading into the dungeon is a deep indentation 
in the rock, which is believed, on the authority of 
the church, to have been occasioned by St. Peter's 



ANCIENT SCULPTURE. 241 

strikliio; his head against the wall as he descended 
in the dark. 

Another relic of the kings of Rome is the 
Cloaca Maxima, which must have approached in 
magnitude the present Parisian sewers ; for there 
were parts of it through which a wagon of the 
ordinary size could be drawn. The masonry at its 
outlet, composed of huge blocks of peperino, is 
still entire, and from its mouth on the bank of the 
Tiber issues a spring, at which women may daily be 
seen washing their clothes. Of course its utility as 
a sewer has ceased, else even Roman housewives 
— regardless as they are of decency — could hardly 
employ it as a lavatory. 

" Among the most beautiful remains of ancient art 
there stand on the summit of the Quirinal Hill 
bronze statues of Castor and Pollux, each holding 
his prancing horse by the bridle. The horses are 
as spirited as life could make them. You almost 
hear their breathing, and expect them to break 
loose from their masters. They were taken from 
the Baths of Constantine, and are currently be- 
lieved to have been the works of Phidias and 
Praxiteles. Certain it is that horses of higher 
artistical merit can never have been moulded or 
cast. 

These four figures are entire, and almost unin- 
jured. It is, however, a very common thing to 
see a statue truncated of some feature or limb, 

16 



242 ANCIENT ROME. 

sometimes of head, feet, or hands, very often of the 
nose, — yet in what remains a master-work, and 
the study and joy of modern sculptors and connois- 
seurs. In the Museum of the Capitol are pre- 
served several colossal hands and feet of surpassing 
perfectness and beauty, belonging to w^orks of the 
residue of which no vestige remains. Some of the 
statues have been restored by modern sculptors, and 
not always so skillfully as to conceal even from an 
unpractised eye the decline of plastic art. Some- 
times in the putting together of the members of an- 
cient statues there is an evident discrepancy between 
the parts, reminding one of the legendary miracle 
of St. Spiridion, who, when on his w^ay with several 
of his brethren to the Council of Nica9a, finding 
that the Arians who lodged at the same caravansary 
had cut off the heads of all the horses of his party, 
replaced the heads in the dark, and started on his 
journey before dawn, but saw in the morning twi- 
light that he had attached black heads to white 
horses, and white heads to black horses. 

The Gallery of the Vatican is richer in ancient 
sculpture than all the world beside. By far the 
most impressive of these works, in my estimation, 
is the Laocoon, of which no copy can give more 
than a faint idea. The victims seem almost to 
shriek audibly, so intense and vivid are the lines 
of terror and agony in their faces and limbs. It 
is often said that sculpture should represent repose, 
not action; and I think that I have never seen 



ANCIENT INSCRIPTIONS. 243 

action represented by a mc^dern sculptor, Avithout 
feeling that his work was a failure, — often gro- 
tesque where it was intended to be grand or pa- 
thetic. But not so the Laocoon. Not so the 
Athletes in the Vatican. Not so the Apollo Sau- 
roktonos, with his bent bow, every muscle of his 
beautiful face strained to its utmost tension to give 
his arrow death-dealing power. 

Among the objects of curious interest to me were 
the ancient inscriptions to be found almost every- 
where in Rome, and of which there is an immense 
collection occupying two very long halls of the Vat- 
ican. In these halls the pieces of marble or stucco 
containing the inscriptions are fastened into the 
walls, and classified under appropriate titles, the Pa- 
gan on one side, the earty Christian on the other. 
I was much impressed by the contrast between the 
two classes of mortuary inscriptions, — the Pagan 
expressing hopeless grief, often despair ; the Chris- 
tian uniformly indicating the power of the Resurrec- 
tion, and the hope full of immortality. The Chris- 
tian epitaphs are short and simple, yet frequently 
containing some touching expression of undying 
love no less than of religious faith. The words In 
pace, " In peace," are found in many of them, as 
if, in those tim€s of persecution, the first thought 
concerning the dead had reference to the profound 
repose of the grave, or rather, of heaven, as a 
refuge from a life of perpetual disturbance and 



244 ANCIENT ROME. 

harassment in this world. Many of these inscrip- 
tions have emblems carved in connection with 
them. The dove, with or without an olive branch, 
occurs more frequently than any other ; the sheep, 
not unfrequently ; the fish, often. The fish is 
probably the earliest of Christian symbols, com- 
prising at once reference to the original calling of 
the apostles, and to their spiritual office as " fish- 
ers of men," but employed chiefly because the 
Greek word for jish^ lx^v<;^ is composed of the in- 
itials of the words 'Ijyo-ou? Xpiaro^, ®iov 'Yto?, %oiTrjp^ 
" Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour." 

Among Christian antiquities there are few that 
inspire a more vivid interest than the buried church 
of St. Clement, which was discovered only about 
ten years ago. It was known that there was an 
early church called by the name of Clemens Ro- 
manus, St. Paul's friend, perhaps built even in his 
lifetime. On the spot where it was believed to 
have stood there have been for many centuries 
a now very ancient church and convent bearing 
the same name. In 1858, in repairing the con- 
vent, the workmen found an old wall, and on pur- 
suing their investigations, they disinterred, directly 
under the present church, and coextensiA^e with it, 
an entire edifice, with marble and granite columns, 
and beautifully frescoed walls. The frescos are 
not so perfectly preserved as those at Pompeii ; 
yet I could determine some of the subjects without 
difficulty, even by flickering torch-light. From 



THE CATACOMBS. 245 

the absence of the nimbus about the heads of 
the saints, it has been inferred that these paintings 
are of a very early age. There are inscriptions 
found within the walls, which contain the names of 
men known to have been consuls under Constan- 
tine. 

There are similar indications of buried churches 
under other churches now standing. They were 
probably built in part under ground, either to avoid 
attracting the attention of the enemies of Chris- 
tianity to the worship of its disciples, or to facilitate 
concealment or escape in case of a descent of the 
imperial police. Then, in more prosperous and 
ambitious times, churches were built over them ; 
they were no longer needed or desirable for wor- 
ship, and were left unused ; the passages leading to 
them were in the course of years floored over, or 
blocked up by new walls, or obstructed by rubbish ; 
the grade of the streets was raised ; and genera- 
tions came forward that knew not the history, and 
preserved not the sacred traditions of the spot. 

Among the memorials of Christian antiquity 
least of all should the Catacombs be overlooked. 
The country around Rome, outside of the walls, is 
completely honey-combed with them. They were, 
no doubt, of Christian origin. In Pagan Rome 
the bodies of the dead were burned, and their ashes 
collected in urns, and placed in sepulchres which 
were generally above ground, or in columbaria 
which always were. But whether Christians ae- 



246 ANCIENT ROME. 

rived the practice of burial or entombment from the 
Jews, were led to it by belief in the literal resur- 
rection of the body, or — what is most probable 
of all — saw in it the likeness of the Saviour's 
death-slumber, and thence the presage of an 
awakening Hke His, they very early, in all parts 
of the civilized world, began to inter or entomb their 
dead ; and the Catacombs were here their places of 
sepulture. As Christianity gained ascendency, the 
use of these cemeteries became general, and prob- 
ably continued so till the capture of Rome by the 
Goths, and perhaps longer. Their connection with 
the persecutions of the Christians is only inciden- 
tal. They probably were not dug in times of per- 
secution, or for the purpose of concealment; for 
such labor could have been very easily detected. 
But, having been prepared in seasons of tranquillity, 
they were resorted to for concealment and for 
worship during the paroxysms of persecution, as 
the Christians had there the threefold safeguard, 
of a retirement from which no sound could reach 
the upper air ; of intricate, labyrinthal passages in 
which they might easily baffle pursuit ; and of the 
superstitious fears which made a Pagan Roman 
very unwilling to meddle with a burial-place. 
It seems almost incredible, yet on careful inquiry 
I find no reason to doubt that there are at least 
sixty of these cemeteries within a few miles of 
Rome, and that the interments in them cannot have 
been less than six million. 



CATACOMBS OF ST. CALLIXTUS. 247 

I visited the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, in which 
several of the Popes, or, rather, early bishops of 
Rome, were interred. This cemetery consists of 
five stories or tiers of narrow galleries, with fre- 
quent angles and branches, seemingly arranged 
without definite plan, — passages having been dug, 
as it would appear, in one direction or another, hori- 
zontally or with a steep declivity, as the conven- 
ience or fancy of the moment dictated. All along 
the galleries are openings six feet, more or less, in 
length, and just broad and deep enough to receive 
a human body. At short intervals there are circu- 
lar chambers containing several of these openings. 
In many of the chambers there is one of the 
apertures (in some of them more than one), 
vaulted above, and with a flat stone bench, altar- 
shaped, beneath. These last are believed to be 
the resting-places of martyrs, as are also some of 
the ordinary grave-places. The martyrs are dis- 
tinguished by various emblematic devices, such as 
the palm, and especially by bottles containing their 
blood, which were generally entombed with them, 
and in some of which the consiealed blood has been 
clearly identified. Many of the inscriptions over 
the grave-places are as easily read as if they had 
been cut yesterday. There are also sculptures and 
frescos, some of them very beautiful, with Christian 
devices, the most common of which is that of the 
Good Shepherd followed by his sheep, or carrying 
one of them on his shoulder. Over a very short 



248 ANCIENT ROME. 

grave-place, where a child had evidently been laid, 
I saw the Shepherd with a lamb in his bosom. 
The most elaborate fresco that met my eye was the 
Adoration of the Magi. The reputed burial-place 
of St. Cecilia, who was a Roman matron in an 
elevated social station, is shown. In a circular re- 
cess hard by the niche where the body lay is a pic- 
ture of the Saviour ; near it is that of an elegantly 
dressed female figure, below which is that of a man, 
with the name Urbanus, traced upon the painting. 
Now Urbanus, the Bishop of Rome, St. Cecilia's 
intimate friend and spiritual counsellor, is known to 
have deposited her body here after her martyrdom. 
The body was subsequently removed to a church 
dedicated to her on the other side of the Tiber. 
The use of the larger apartments in the Cata- 
combs as places of worship is indicated by sockets 
evidently designed for lamps. Preference would 
naturally have been given to the chamber where a 
martyr lay. Hence the shelf, altar, or communion- 
table, so often found directly in front of such grave- 
places. As for the marks of elaborate ornamenta- 
tion in these cells of the martyrs, it is out of the 
question that such work should have been accom- 
plished while a persecution raged ; but in peaceful 
times the living would have wrought lovingly in 
honor of the holy dead, and after Christianity be- 
came the established religion of the empire, adorn- 
ing the sepulchres of those who had laid down their 
lives for the faith, would have seemed a preemi- 
nently pious work. 



THE FALLS OF TIVOLL 249 

I have spoken of the immense extent of the Baths 
of Caracalla. Some twelve or fourteen miles from 
Rome are the still more extensive ruins of the Villa 
of Hadrian, That such an imperial residence could 
have been built in a reign of twenty years, from the 
revenues of an empire, however strongly reinforced 
by extortion and pillage, would be inconceivable, 
were it not true. This rural residence of the em- 
peror covered a space not less than eight miles in 
circuit, and was itself a not inconsiderable city, 
containing not only the largest of imperial palaces, 
but two amphitheatres, several temples, barracks 
for some thousands of troops, houses for the great 
officers of state, quarters for hundreds of domestics, 
and ranges of small cells, in three stories, for the 
lodging of many hundreds of slaves. There are 
still on the ground materials enough to build a town 
that should contain eia;ht or ten thousand inhabi- 
tants. Very little of the ornamental work remains ; 
but there are some frescos not obliterated, and some 
patches of mosaic floor. There is one portico six 
hundred feet long, of which the arches and a great 
part of the wall are standing. 

This villa is near Tivoli, the ancient Tibur, which 
is so closely connected with ancient Home as the 
nearest favorite rural resort and residence, that 
some notice of it may not be inappropriate here. 
A more beautifal spot there can hardly be. It is 
situated on the Anio (now called the Teverone), 
which here falls more than three hundred feet into 



250 ANCIENT ROME. 

a vast circular gorge, that from almost every point 
looks like a crater with no outlet. Some parts of 
the gorge- are Hned bj huge cliffs that have been 
carved by the freshets of successive centuries into 
the most fantastic shapes ; while in others the most 
luxuriant vegetation extends to the water's edge. 
The river is turbid, and almost of a milky white- 
ness. There are foot and donkey paths leading 
down to the gorge, by zigzags that present new and 
varying views from moment to moment. Then, 
from the heights that rise above the river, the pros- 
pect extends in some directions over the Campagna, 
till in the far distance, as the expanse melts into the 
blue heavens, it is hard to believe that the horizon 
is not bounded by an undulating sea ; while in 
other directions rise the Alban Hills, almost like 
clouds, as they nestle in the azure of the sky. 
Unrivalled in its own type of beauty as Tivoli may 
now seem, Tihur must have been even more charm- 
ing in the time of Rome's fresh glory ; for, to pre- 
vent the recurrence of terrible inundations, the 
river has been diverted from the downward path 
in which it had been its own engineer, and has 
been led into a safer way, with little detriment in- 
deed to its picturesque eifect, yet manifestly with 
the loss of some very desirable points of view. 

Near the falls are the ruins of two ancient tem- 
ples, built of travertine, a very beautiful and dur- 
able limestone abounding in that region. One of 
these temples is almost entire. It must have been 



TIBUR. 251 

consecrated to Yesta; for it is circular, and her 
temples were generally circular, with the foeus^ or 
hearth for the perpetual fire, in the centre. The 
other, which also is well-preserved, was probably 
built in honor of the last of the Sibyls, Albunea, 
whose special seat of worship Tibur was, — she 
having: doubtless been the Meg: Merrilies of the vil- 
lage, with poetry enough in her madness to pass for 
inspiration. 

These scenes are familiar to every classical 
scholar through the frequent references to them by 
Horace, the site of whose favorite Tiburtian villa is 
shown (but on very questionable authority), on 
the brow of a hill commanding the fullest view of 
the dowmward rush of the " headlong Anio." He 
speaks often of the genial soil and the dense shade 
of his beloved Tibur,^ and in one of his Odes 
says, " O that Tibur may be the seat of my old 
age ! " ^ Catullus was born and had a patrimonial 
estate in Tibur, and the very attractive site of his 
villa is shown to all visitors ; but there is some 
reason, from one of his songs, to suppose that his 
farm was not where it is said to have been, but on 
the very outskirts of aristocratic Tibur, and near 
the Sabine frontier.^ He speaks of having resorted 

1 *' Domus Albunege resonantis, 
Et prceceps A7iio, ac Tiburni lucus, et uda 
Mobilibus pomaria rivis." 
2 " Tibur, Argeo positura colono, 
Sit meae sedes utinam senectse.*' 
• " funde noster, seu Sabiae, seu Tibura, 



252 ANCIENT ROME. 

to his Tiburtian villa to get rid of a bad cough con- 
tracted and fairly earned by a course of sumptuous 
suppers in Rome.^ 

We found the road to Tivoli charming, but des- 
olate, - — so much so, that there had been some re- 
cent instances of robbery, even by daylight. For 
a great part of the way the only buildings in sight 
were a few shepherds' huts. The flocks are nu- 
merous and very large. I had always supposed the 
line of the hymn, 

" Flocks that whiten all the plain," 

an exaggeration ; but the description is literally 
applicable here. I saw acres of sheep huddled so 
closely together as hardly to leave an inch of green 
in sight. 

Some notice of the Campagna belongs of right to 
ancient Rome. The name is applied to an almost 
uninhabited region stretching from the city in every 
direction. There is good reason to suppose that it 
was densely peopled sixteen centuries ago, and we 
have no evidence that it was peculiarly unhealthy 
then. Now it is regarded as unsafe, except in the 
winter, to pass so much as a single night there. 
The husbandmen and laborers who work on the 

Nam te esse Tiburtem autumant, quibus non est 
Cordi Catullum Igedere; at quibus cordi est, 
Quovis Sabinum pignore esse contendunt." 
1 " Fui libenter in tua suburbana 

Villa, malamque pectore expuli tussim; 
Non immerenti quam mihi meus venter, 
Dum snniptuosas appeto, dedit, ccenas." 



THE TIBER. 253 

plain have their homes on the more remote hills, 
and not unfrequentlj carry home with them fatal 
fever. Even close to the gates of E-ome, splendid 
villas and grovnids, which it must be the greatest 
sacrifice ever to leave, are occupied by their owners 
only for a few months in the year ; to remain in 
them after Easter is to incur fatal risk. The prob- 
lem is. Was the Campagna deserted because it 
was unhealthy ; or is it unhealthy because it is de- 
serted ? The latter seems to me immeasurably the 
more probable. Occupancy and cultivation no 
doubt checked the over-rank growth of vegetation, 
led to a certain amount of drainage, and especially 
insured the frequent moving of the soil, and the 
utilization and the reproductive consumption, in 
dressing for the land, of decaying animal and vege- 
table matter, which else would have been delete- 
rious. Were the land attainable now on reasonable 
terms, and open with the prospect of large returns 
to Anglo-Saxon colonists, this whole region would 
be reclaimed and made healthy in a single genera- 
tion, with perhaps no greater amount of suffering 
from fever at the outset than has been encountered 
in many sections of our Middle and Western States 
that now enjoy a salubrious climate. 

The Tiber ought not to pass unnoticed, as the 
least chano-ed of all mutable features of ancient 
Rome. The least changed, I sav : for it is not in 
all respects the same river. It was navigable in 
the Augustan age, ani for the two or three sue- 



254 ANCIENT ROME. 

ceediiig centuries, by the largest vessels then in ex- 
istence, corresponding in draught of water to our 
present ships of a thousand tons ; though there is 
reason to suppose that the larger vessels were 
obliged to take in and discharge a part of their 
cargo outside of the mouth of the river. Now it 
is navigable only by vessels of a very light draught. 
It is as yellow and turbid as of old, — rapid too, 
though probably less so than when its affluents were 
fuller. Nor can it be subject to as sudden and vio- 
lent alternations of level as formerly. There are 
parts of the city that are liable to be inundated 
every year : but there can hardly have been in re- 
cent centuries an overflow like that described in 
the second ode of Horace, in which a Temple of 
Vesta that had stood from the time of Numa Pom- 
pilius was destroyed. 

Of the ancient Roman people, the vestiges are 
few and doubtftil. Some of the palaces bear names 
suggestive of classical names, and some of the noble 
families profess themselves descendants of families 
that were distinguished under the Republic and the 
Empire ; but there is not a single instance in which 
the pedigree is not vitiated by a break of several 
centuries. If there are genuine Romans in exist- 
ence, they are much more probably the descendants 
of obscure than of distinguished families ; for the 
latter would have been exterminated or driven into 
exile in revolutions or invasions, by which the for- 



EPIPHANY REVELS. 255 

nier would not have been disturbed. If I saw any 
men who were Romans in mien and gait, it was the 
Trasteverini, dwellers beyond or on the right bank 
of the Tiber, who are coarse and rude in appear- 
ance, but are often possessed of a vigor of frame 
and a high standard of physical development, with 
the type of beauty thence resulting, the like of 
which we see nowhere else in Italy. This region 
of the city furnishes not a few beggars and models. 
The favorite models — men, women, and children 
— are some of the finest specimens of the human 
face and form that are to be found upon the earth. 
Among them I remember an old man, who sat to 
one of our American artists for the prophet Jere- 
miah, and who would more than fill out our ideal 
of the most venerable of the ancient Romans. I 
have seen a Trasteverine beggar wrap his tattered 
raiment about him, and stretch out his hand for alms, 
with as much majesty and grace as Cicero can have 
shown when he rose to address the Senate. 

Whether I saw many or few of the posterity of 
the old Romans, I had the satisfaction of witnessing 
a festival, which has evidently come down in a di- 
rect line of transmission fi'om their Saturnalia. The 
eve of the Epiphany is given over to the Genius of 
Misrule. The sport begins in the early evening, 
and culminates at midnight. I went with two 
friends toward midnight to the neighborhood of the 
Pantheon, which is the centre of the froHc, and 
probably was so when it was a Pantheon^ and the 



256 ANCIENT ROME, 

motley population of the city resorted for their mad 
sport to the temple where every man could find his 
own god. The whole district was filled with a 
noisy, riotous, but perfectly good-tempered mob. 
The streets were barricaded so that no horse could 
pass, and there were stretched across the streets, 
at frequent intervals, rows of torches and of pans 
filled with oil, with pieces of cotton cloth ablaze in 
them, elevated on posts and poles. There were nu- 
merous booths for the sale of dolls, toys, and eata- 
bles ; and the people were making purchases corre- 
sponding to our Christmas and New Year's presents. 
Almost every man, woman, and child w^as armed 
with a tin trumpet, or with some equally inartistic 
instrument of sound, not to say music ; and every 
one who had a trumpet was blowing it with all his 
or her might. Every few steps we encountered 
little processions of trumpet-blowers, with or with- 
out torches, and generally with a huge jumping- 
jack, or some similar large figure, kept in perpetual 
motion by wires or strings, and held aloft for a 
banner. These parties repeatedly endeavored to 
draft us as conscripts for the march or dance, but 
readily desisted when they learned that we were 
strangers. There were engaged in the sport per- 
sons of all ages, and seemingly of all conditions in 
life. Whether the Roman nobles or gentry were 
there I cannot say ; for I did not know them. But 
there were many well-dressed Roman men and 
women actively engaged in the crowd ; and, of 



EPIPHANY REVELS. 257 

course, of English and American gentlemen and la- 
dies, not a few were present as spectators. There 
was no drunkenness, and no personal violence, but 
the spirit of unrestrained fan and jollity ruled the 
night. It cannot be a Christian festival. It certainly 
has nothing to do with the Epiphany, except that it 
is so thoroughly gentile, so unmistakably a remnant 
of heathenism. I cannot be mistaken in deeming 
a description of it a fit close for a chapter on an- 
cient Rome. 



17 



CHAPTER XL 

MODERN ROME. 

St. Peter's. — The Vatican. — Sistine Chapel. — The Last Judgment. 
— Raphael's Creation. — Etruscan Museum. — Hall of Maps. — 
Vatican Library. — Manufacture of Mosaics. — Christmas at St. 
Peter's. — The Cardinals. — The Pope. — Christmas at the Ara 
Coeli. — Scala Santa. — Church of St. Stephen. — Vault of the Ca- 
puchins. — Monks in Rome. — State of the City. — Palaces. — Ar- 
tists. — Houses of the Poor. — Beggars. — Chestnut Venders. — Bad 
Police. — Fox-hunt. — Protestant Cemetery. — Falls of Terni. 

The most striking object in modern Rome is St. 
Peter's, which must, I suppose, fall short of every 
visitor's expectation, simply because it is a human 
and mundane work, and it is a superhuman and 
supramundane idea of it that we have been led to 
form by the superlatives in which we have seen and 
heard it described. 

The exterior is, I think, permanently disappoint- 
ing. It is impossible to obtain a good side view of 
it ; and the front, which is immense in breadth and 
height, shows no large spaces, being broken up, not 
only by doors, but by a tier of half-length windows 
over the doors. These windows also belittle the 
portals, which are really very grand. Then, too, 
the dome, which is the most vast and imposing 



ST. PETER'S. 259 

feature of the exterior, cannot be seen m full from 
anj accessible point near the church ; while, beheld 
from a distance, it seems to float in the air, as if 
poised upon the clouds, — a work beyond the high- 
est scope of human art. 

The interior, impressive from the first, grows 
more and more so, the longer and oftener it is seen. 
It has the sublimity of some great work of nature. 
Its proportions are as simple as they are vast. The 
greater part of the floor and of the aerial space 
within the walls, is unobstructed and void, and in- 
vites one to contemplate, simply and solely, the 
majesty of the dimensions, the symmetry of the 
design, and the exalted reverence due to the ge- 
nius in which the edifice had birth. There is no 
painted glass, no tawdry ornament of any kind, 
nothing either to intercept the view, or to lower the 
tone of sentiment. 

The floor is, in part, of marble, tessellated in 
large and simple figures ; in part, of designs in mo- 
saic. The statuary is mostly of marble, and all 
colossal. There are no paintings ; but the pictures 
are chiefly enlarged copies in mosaic of well-known 
master-works, — the stones, or rather the blocks of 
porcelain that constitute the mosaics, being so fine 
and so closely set that it is very hard to believe 
them not oil-paintings. The monuments — princi- 
pally tombs of popes — are for the most part large 
enough to belong to the department of architecture 
rather than to that of sculpture ; and yet, large as 



260 MODERN ROME. 

they are, they are nowhere suffered to be promi- 
nent, but are placed against the wails, and seem 
dwarfed by the vast spaces around them. The rear 
wall bears, on an elevated and richly decorated 
structure, a splendid bronze chair, inside of which, 
and invisible, is the chair ^ which the Church sup- 
poses St. Peter to have occupied. The high altar, 
under which are the relics of St. Peter, is directly 
beneath the great dome, and has over it a gor- 
geously wrought bronze canopy supported by four 
spiral columns. The great dome is about four hun- 
dred and fifty feet high from the floor, and, as one 
looks up to it, it seems to belong to another sphere. 
It is as graceful and beautiful as it is grand. There 
are four smaller domes, themselves immense. 

Among the objects which should not be forgotten 
is the colossal bronze statue of St. Peter, seated in 
a marble chair. This figure attracts more visible 
worship than any shrine or altar in the church. 
Most antiquaries, who are not Romanists, believe it 
to have been a statue of Jupiter Capitolinus. It is 
very majestic in attitude and expression ; but it lacks 
the grace and symmetry that belong to the best 
days of classic art. The great toe of the right foot 
is nearly worn off, and the next is beginning to suf- 
fer appreciable diminution, by the incessant kissing 
of worshippers, and still more, perhaps, by constant 

1 This inclosed chair was uncovered and examined while Rome was 
under the sway of Napoleon Bonaparte, and there was found on it the 
inscription in Arabic. "There is one God, and Mahomet is Hia 
Prophet I" 



DOME OF ST. PETER'S. 261 

wiping ; for every votary that has a handkerchief 
wipes the toe, kisses it, and wipes it again. But 
this is the only form of idolatry that is witnessed at 
St. Peter's. The church is wholly free from the 
paltry shows which attract the ignorant and credu- 
lous, even in the great cathedrals, — from bedizened 
madonnas, and the like. 

The most impressive view of the interior is from 
a gallery which runs round the base of the dome. 
Standing there, and looking alternately down from 
an altitude from which men on the floor were as 
grasshoppers, and up into the vault which stretched 
higher above me than I stood from the floor, I felt 
the grandeur of the building as I felt it nowhere 
else. The temple below me seemed to reach out 
into shadowy depths of unmeasured space, and the 
vast dome looked more like an horizon of colored 
air than like a man-made structure. It is impossi- 
ble, without seeing it, to estimate the rich work of 
that dome. Its inner surface is composed wholly 
of figures and pictures in mosaic, in the most bril- 
liant colors. 

The roof of St. Peter's is adorned in fi'ont by 
statues of the Twelve Apostles, which look diminu- 
tive from below ; but when I walked among them, 
I found them very roughly carved granite figures 
not less than twenty feet high. From the cupola 
that surmounts the great dome, the view of the 
lesser domes and the various roofs is as if not a 
large building, but a small city, lay beneath ; while 



262 MODERN ROME. 

the height is so great as to overtop not only the Sev- 
en Hills, which are insignificant hillocks compared 
with it, but all the nearer mountains (so-called), 
and to command a prospect to which they can make 
no pretension. I climbed into the gilded ball which 
is the summit of the whole edifice, and w^hich from 
below looks of the size of a small apple, yet is large 
enough to contain four or five men at a time. 

The Vatican Palace, which adjoins St. Peter's, 
is an immense and irregular mass of buildings of 
various ages, some of them at least as old as Charle- 
magne. It has been the principal Papal residence 
for nearly five hundred years, and is now the pres- 
ent Pope's only residence ; for though the Quirinal 
Palace is kept in readiness for his occupancy, he has 
not crossed its threshold since his flight from it in 
1849. Into his private apartments and grounds 
there is, I believe, no admission for unintroduced 
strangers. The public apartments make the Vati- 
can by far the richest and most magnificent palace 
in the civilized world. 

Most noteworthy among these is the Sistine 
Chapel, a very plain apartment, smaller than the 
average of our country churches, but celebrated 
for its world-renowned frescos, especially those by 
Michael Angelo, on the ceiling and on the wall op- 
posite the entrance. On the flat portion of the 
ceiling are subjects from Scripture history, and on 
the arched portion a series of prophets and sibyls 
(who were in the painter's time accounted as 



THE LAST JUDGMENT. 263 

prophets), the majesty of whose forms and features 
no tongue or pen can describe, nor could the im- 
agination conceive of them from any human figures 
that one has actually seen. But if we take for 
the basis of our conception the most majestic hu- 
man beings we have ever seen, and add to them 
the mass of mind, soul, and character which must 
accrue to them from the highest inspiration, from 
intimate communion with the Almighty, and from 
the prolonged exercise of such functions as have 
been assigned only to the elect few among mor- 
tals, we have something like these pictures. The 
rear wall is covered by the Last Judgment, — 
sublime, terrible, reminding one of the most in- 
tensely wrought descriptions in the " Inferno," prob- 
ably the most awe-inspiring picture ever painted. 
Even at the Saviour's right hand, horror is blended 
with the expression of ecstatic joy ; for the mar- 
tyrs are there with the symbols of the various tor- 
tures through which they passed to immortality. 
On his left hand, in the fall of lost spirits into the 
abyss of their torment, the most terrific scenes of 
the classic mythology are mingled with those which 
more properly belong to the realm of Christian art. 
Thus Charon is seen ferrying a full freight across 
the Styx, and striking dow^n contumacious spirits 
with his oar. The light of the chapel at best is 
poor ; and the Last Judgment has been greatly in- 
jured both by dampness and by the smoke of can- 
dles and incense. I could not have taken in its 



264 MODERN KOME. 

details with any certainty or satisfaction, had I not 
previously studied a copy of it on a wall in the 
Academy of Fine Arts in Paris. 

There are, in the Vatican, several porticos and 
halls that were frescoed under the superintendence 
of Raphael, and painted in great part by his own 
hand. One of these frescos, the Creation, while 
of course lacking the element of terror, in grand- 
eur of conception, boldness of execution, and all 
that indicates a master's transcending genius, falls 
hardly short of the Last Judgment. The first 
scene, the separation of light from darkness, vies in 
sublimity — in the representation of the formle&js 
dark of chaos startled into potential shape and order 
by the light-creating fiat — with the more than 
epic grandeur of the sentence of Holy Writ that 
describes it. 

I referred, in a former chapter, to the Picture 
Gallery in the Vatican, and to its master-work, 
Raphael's Transfiguration. Next to this in merit 
is the Communion of St. Jerome, by Domenichino, 
— ■ representing the dying saint as he receives the 
sacred emblems from Ephraem Syrus. The blend- 
ing of death and of beatification accomplished, 
heaven begun, in the saint's countenance and mien, 
cannot be surpassed in the imagination, while all 
the details of the picture are in perfect harmony 
with the central figure and the sacredness of the 
scene. 

The Sculpture Gallery of the Vatican consists of 



HALL OF MAPS. 265 

many magnificent apartments, and one who lias not 
seen it can form no conception of its wealth. There 
is an Egyptian museum, much inferior to the cor- 
responding department in the British Museum. 
The Etruscan Museum is undoubtedly the richest 
in the world. Indeed, it contains materials for re- 
producing all the details of the domestic life of that 
wonderful people, — a nation already in decay 
when Rome was born. In the collection are articles 
of the kitchen and of the toilette, ornaments and 
jewelry. There are also sepulchral monuments, em- 
blems, and urns, in great number and variety, — - 
some of the urns with the ashes of the dead still in 
them. The mythology of the Etruscans seems to 
have had much in common with that of the Ro- 
mans, who doubtless borrowed from them a large 
proportion of their objects of worship and their 
mythical stories. Their art was exquisite in beauty, 
and many of its forms have never been surpassed. 
They must have been a very highly civilized peo- 
ple, yet they have almost no history, except such as 
has been disinterred from their sepulchres. 

Opening from one of the apartments of the 
Sculpture Gallery is the hall hung with the original 
tapestry, woven from the designs furnished by 
Raphael's cartoons. The colors are but little faded. 
Beyond this room is a narrow apartment, five hun- 
dred feet long, painted on both sides with a series 
of maps of Italy and the islands on its coast, on 
a very large scale, with the most minute specifica- 



266 MODERN ROME. 

tion of every locality that has a name, executed in 
a style of the highest artistical beauty, and, apart 
from their geographical value, as charming to the 
eye as a richly frescoed wall. 

The Vatican Library contains the most valuable 
collection of manuscripts in the world, numbering 
nearly twenty-five thousand, together with about 
forty thousand printed books. Not a book of any 
kind is to be seen, the whole being locked up in 
unglazed cabinets. Portions of the walls and the 
entire ceilings of the magnificent suite of apart- 
ments that constitute the Library, are splendidly 
frescoed with appropriate subjects, and there are nu- 
merous curiosities that are open to the inspection of 
visitors. The manuscripts can be consulted only 
by special favor, and under onerous restrictions, and 
of the books there is not even a catalogue of any 
kind, so that no other library in the world is so 
nearly useless. 

One of my most interesting visits in the Vatican 
was to the long suite of apartments devoted to the 
manufacture of mosaics for ecclesiastical uses. I 
saw a great deal of the finished work, and witnessed 
every stage of the manufacture. The ground of 
one of these mosaics is a composition as hard as 
marble. On this is spread a coating of moist, tena- 
cious clay, on which the design is traced with a 
pencil, the artist having also beside him a colored 
copy of the picture which he is to reproduce. He 
removes a minute portion of the clay at a time, and 



CHRISTMAS AT ROME. 267 

replaces each portion so removed by an almost type- 
shaped piece of glazed porcelain of the tint re- 
quired, each piece being dipped in a liquid cement 
to hold it in its place. The larger pieces are set by 
the hand, the smaller by pincers. Each workman 
has at his side a series of little boxes filled with 
pieces of various shades, arranged like the boxes 
for the different letters of a font of type. The 
tints used are reckoned by the hundred, and the 
varieties of size and tint, that is, the different kinds 
of pieces employed, are more than ten thousand. 

I was at Rome during the Christmas festivities, 
and will now describe what I witnessed of the ec- 
clesiastical ceremonies. Between two and three 
o'clock on Christmas morning, I went to St. Peter's 
to hear the pastorale. The service consisted of 
the intoning of a few prayers, and the singing of 
songs or hymns in celebration of the Nativity. It 
is considered the choicest musical entertainment 
of the week. It is in one of the chapels, or rather, 
open side-recesses of the church, itself large enough 
to contain an audience of four or five hundred, 
with two organs, only one of which was in use. 
The singing was simple, sweet, and tender. A por- 
tion of it was the supposed song of the shepherds, 
and it had much of the pastoral artlessness and 
naivete. The singers seemed to feel their own 
work, either artistically or devotionally, — I trust 
both. I obtained a seat in front of the unused 



268 MODERN ROME. 

organ, and stayed there an hour. Then for another 
hour, I wandered up and down in the vast body of 
the church, enjoying the effect of the music at dif- 
ferent distances, as also the amazing grandeur of 
the edifice by the dim light ; for it lay in darkness, 
except where a broad bar of light streamed from 
the illuminated chapel, and a few feeble rays from 
the tapers always kept burning around the crypt 
containing the supposed relics of St. Peter. 

I returned to the church early in the forenoon, to 
witness the great ceremonial of the day. At ten 
o'clock the procession entered the church. First 
came a splendid array of the Pope's various descrip- 
tions of soldiers, in dazzling uniforms, — his body- 
guard, in the picturesque and absolutely grand dress 
designed for them by Michael Angelo ; also a com- 
pany of halberdiers, in veritable mediaeval steel hel- 
mets and plate-armor. Then came several hundred 
ecclesiastical dignitaries of various grades, — the 
prelates arrayed in the most showy and gaudy mil- 
linery, glittering with gold and jewels, with gilded 
mitres, and the cardinals in scarlet, with ermine 
tippets. Near the close of the procession, the Pope 
was carried in his chair of state, on the shoulders 
of twelve men, under a magnificent canopy, with 
two immense fans of peacocks' feathers borne be- 
hind him, — he wearing the jewelled tiara which is 
worth untold millions, and garments, the like of 
which can be seen nowhere else but in oriental 
fable. His bearers were in the costume of Italian 



CHRISTMAS AT ST. PETER'S. 269 

nobles of the Middle Ages, with high ruffs, lace 
bands, silk doublets, heavy gold chains, and long 
swords. Tiie chair swayed a good deal as it was 
carried through the aisles, and its motion reminded 
me of that of the cars in which I have seen chil- 
dren ride on the back of an elephant. It is said 
that the Pope dislikes the motion. It makes him 
seasick. 

He was first set down near the relics of St. 
Peter, and there he received the homage of the 
ecclesiastics, and gave them his benediction, — they 
kneelino; in succession before him, those of the hio;h- 
est grade kissing his gloved hand, those of a lower 
order, his slippered foot ; while for others, the bless- 
ing was received by the proper functionaries in 
their hands, and conveyed to the hands of those 
entitled to it, by a process precisely like that with 
which all my readers must be familiar, in the game 
whose formula is, " Hold fast what I give you." 
This service of man-worship concluded, the Pope 
was removed to his official chair ; and after many 
preliminary ceremonies, he advanced to the high 
altar, and, with several assistants, performed high 
mass, intoning his part of the service in a remark- 
ably loud, clear voice, not unmusical. During the 
service, his tiara was exchanged for a plain gilded 
mitre, then for a plain white mitre ; then for a time 
he wore only a white skullcap, like a nightcap with- 
out ruff or border, and for a little while his white 
head was bare. Once he needed a handkerchief, 



270 MODERN ROME. 

and, with great difficulty, lie fished up from deep 
recesses in his raiment — the only time he did any- 
thing for himself — a red bandanna. I saw that 
some other dignitaries of exalted rank were simi- 
larly furnished. I am sorry to say that, even in 
the most solemn parts of the service, there was a 
great deal of snuff-taking among the celebrants ; 
and I inferred that the accessory of the toilette 
which I have named — long obsolete with us — is 
of the haut ton in Rome. The service was in great 
part choral, with the aid of a fine military band ; and 
at the elevation of the host a brief and most im- 
pressive silence was broken by two silver trumpets 
in the clearest, sweetest notes I ever heard from a 
wind instrument. The service lasted about two 
hours and a half; and when it was closed, the pro- 
cession was re-formed, and the Pope carried out as 
he had been brought in. There was privileged 
standing-room for gentlemen in black, with dress- 
coats ; and such ladies as were dressed in black, 
without bonnets, and with lace veils, were comfort- 
ably seated. The church was not full, though when 
the congregation moved off through the great square 
in front, the multitude seemed immense. According 
to the most trustworthy estimate, there could not 
have been less than ten thousand persons present. 

The cardinals are among the most imposing por- 
tions of an ecclesiastical pageant in Rome. An- 
tonelli is the only one among them who does not 
look either in senile or premature dotage. His 



PAPAL PAGEANTRY. 271 

countenance is that of a clear-headed, strong-minded 
man ; but it is not a face that could possibly com- 
mand confidence. The state of the members of 
the sacred college is more than princely. On most 
public occasions, they wear scarlet trains at least two 
yards long, which are borne by minor ecclesiastics. 
By the way, it takes four men to carry the Pope's 
train. The carriages of the cardinals vie in splen- 
dor and in profuse gilding with the coronation- 
coaches of kings ; their horses are dressed with 
scarlet plumes ; and each member of the college 
has a coachman and two or three lackeys standing 
on the footboard behind his carriage, in liveries so 
showy, and, at the same time, of such costly mate- 
rials, that an unpractised eye might easily mistake 
them for coronation-robes. 

The whole Christmas pageant was interesting, 
considered as a mere show ; as a Christian ceremo- 
nial, it was simply disgusting. Were the enemies 
of Christianity to devise a farcical celebration of its 
Founder's birthday, designed to burlesque the spirit 
of his religion, they could invent nothing more ap- 
propriate than this ; and nothing can be more pre- 
posterous than for that old man, bedizened with 
more lace, embroidery, and tinsel than would set up 
a dozen Parisian milliners, and requiring the ser- 
vices of two men to take off or put on his cap, to 
term himself the representative of the manger-born 
Saviour, with his plain, seamless garment, and the 
successor of the Apostles, who labored with their 



272 MODERN ROME. 

own hands, to supply their own wants and to help 
their fellow-disciples. 

The Pope's face does not please me. It is a 
whity-brown, parboiled sort of a countenance, with 
a blandness that seems the result of constant study, 
and is not radiant enough to be benevolence, and 
with an expression denoting a feeble intellect, yet 
no lack of cunning. If I met him as a stranger in 
common clothes, 1 think that I should both feel that 
he was not a man to be trusted, and be sure that he 
would employ every possible artifice to make him- 
self confided in. 

On Christmas afternoon I attended a very differ- 
ent celebration, — one which attracts the common 
people of the city and the peasantry from the 
country in great numbers, and which, I confess, 
suited my taste better than that at St. Peter's, 
there seemed so much more of heart in it. It was 
at the Ara Coeli Church, which stands where the 
temple of the Capitoline Jupiter stood. On one 
side of the church was a very good scenic repre- 
sentation — - with the aid of transparencies — of the 
manger of the Nativity, the Holy Mother and her 
child, the worshipping shepherds, the oxen ; in the 
background, a hill-country with various rural and 
pastoral objects ; and above, a luminous cloud, with 
the " multitude of the heavenly host " floating in 
the expanse. On the opposite side was erected a 
stao;e five or six feet liio:h : and on this a series of 
little girls, one after another, j:>reacAec?, as they term 



THE SCALA SANTA. 273 

it, that is, recited short speeches prepared for tlie 
occasion, in honor of the infant Saviour, and invit- 
ing the hearers to join the sliepherds in their ado- 
ration. The speeches were well learned, and sweetly 
spoken ; and they were listened to with rapt atten- 
tion, — a murmur of admiration passing round as 
each child closed her performance. The whole was 
about on a level with some of our American Sun- 
day-school celebrations, and because it was so, I 
liked and enjoyed it ; for the hearers were as 
little children, and these rites, which might have 
been rejected by a fastidious taste, evidently excited 
their fervent gratitude, and breathed into them the 
true spirit of the day. 

Of the churches of Rome, there are so many 
which might claim distinct mention, that I know 
not how to choose among them, and shall attempt 
no description of any. The Church of St. John in 
the Lateran has, perhaps, more objects of interest 
in it than any other, except St. Peter's. Hard by 
it is the Scala Santa^ the twenty-eight marble steps, 
fabled to have been those in Pilate's house, down 
which Jesus passed after his examination by the 
Koman Governor. They are covered with stout 
planks, which yet are considerably worn by con- 
stant use. Penitents ascend these steps on their 
knees, the greater part of them manifestly in weari- 
ness and pain, though I saw among them some boys, 
seeming as much in earnest as their elders, yet evi- 
ls 



274 MODERN ROME. 

dently finding the task by no means difficult. There 
were placards defining the benefits to accrue from 
this penance. A certain number of years of pur- 
gatory — I forget whether ten or a hundred — were 
to be remitted for every step. There were several 
who ascended more than once while I was there. 
The penitents were present in crowds, and the 
stairs were constantly full. I know not whether it 
is always so. My visit was on the festival of St. 
John the Evangelist, which had attracted great 
multitudes to the adjoining church. It will be 
remembered that it was while Luther was toiling 
up this staircase on his knees, that the words of 
Scripture, " The just shall live by faith," flashed 
into his soul as by a sudden inspiration, and with 
them the germ — all ready for the most rapid 
growth — of his favorite doctrine of justification by 
faith. 

In the chapel at the top of the staircase is shown 
a portrait of the Saviour in his boyhood, by St. 
Luke. There are a good many pictures exhib- 
ited as his in other parts of Roman Catholic 
Europe. I confess they do him no honor. More- 
over, some of them do not look very old, and the 
best of them, but for the name of so illustrious an 
artist, would be deemed worth neither selling nor 
keeping. 

One of the most curious churches in Rome is 
that of St. Stephen, supposed to have been a meat- 
market in the time of Nero. The inner wall is 



MONKS IN ROME. 275 

completely covered with frescos of martyrdoms, 
comprising all the terrible forms of death recorded 
in the annals of the Church, and this, too, in the 
coarsest style of art, and so literally as to make the 
representations horrid and appalling. 

The crypt or vault of the Church of the Capu- 
chins has left even a more grim and ghastly impres- 
sion on my memory. In this vault is a limited 
quantity of earth from Jerusalem, in which all the 
brethren, for many generations, have wanted to be 
buried. Each, therefore, has his turn. When a 
brother dies, the senior occupant of the sacred soil 
is disinterred, and what remains of him is placed in 
a standing or sitting posture, in one of a series of 
cloisters devoted to this use alone. Many of the 
bodies retain enough of form and feature to look 
even more hideous than skeletons. Most horrible 
of all, — the bones of the bodies which, with the 
utmost possible care, could not be held together, 
have been wrought into wreaths and other fantastic 
patterns, some made of vertebras, some of skull- 
bones, some of ribs, some of the bones of the arm 
or the leg. 

The living monks of this establishment, and, in- 
deed, the greater part of the monks to be seen by 
scores in Rome, are remarkable for nothing more 
than for what seems a chronic hydrophobia. They 
believe cleanliness to be at the opposite pole of hu- 
manity from godliness, and whatever may be their 
general consistency of conduct, no one can deny 



276 MODERN ROME. 

that, in this respect, they are true to their creed, 
both in person and in apparel. No active board of 
health would tolerate them in the streets. 

In taking leave of things ecclesiastical, I am con- 
strained to say that Romanism looks worse at Home 
than anywhere else. I heard much that it was a 
joy to hear ; for the music was attractive, charming, 
almost heavenly. I saw very little that I like to 
recollect in connection with a church, which, with 
all its blemishes, numbers among its members on 
earth and in heaven, not a few men and women, in 
the humblest place at whose feet we might deem it 
our highest privilege to sit as learners and imitators. 

There are in Rome several palaces, and in its 
suburbs several villas, containing celebrated works 
of art, which are thrown open to the public at cer- 
tain times during the day or week. The most beau- 
tiful grounds in the whole region are those of the 
Villa Borghese, — so tastefully arranged that Art is 
constantly kept subordinate to Nature as her satellite 
and exhibitor. Groves and clumps of trees are left 
in their native denseness ; rocks are suffered to 
clothe themselves at their own will and in their 
own way ; and drives and foot-paths are made so to 
wind and return upon themselves as to keep always 
close upon some prospect which the visitor feels re- 
luctant to change even for its equal. In the house 
or casino belonging to these grounds is a large col- 
lection of works of art, especially of statuary, of 



AMERICAN ARTISTS. 277 

whicli the most remarkable piece is Canova's Venus 
Victrix, for which the Princess Pauhne Borghese, 
the sister of Napoleon I., sat as model. The 
grounds of the Pamphili Doria Villa are hardly 
inferior to these, and more extensive, covering sev- 
eral square miles. 

Within the city, there are about a hundred buil- 
dings called palaces, and they are, in general, remark- 
able for their roominess, their massive and substan- 
tial architecture, the simplicity and elegance of their 
style, and the strong kindred which they bear to 
classic art as to their general effect, though there 
are very few points of detail in which a modern 
Roman palace resembles an ancient Roman house. 
I might name many master- works to be seen in 
these palaces ; but I will content myself with the 
mention of Guido's remarkable fresco of Aurora, on 
a ceiling in the Rospigliosi Palace. This is the 
most deeply and vividly colored fresco T have ever 
seen. It has as great an affluence and diversity of 
the most brilliant tints as can be found in any pic- 
ture on canvas. It represents the Sun's chariot 
drawn by four magnificent and gayly prancing 
horses, with seven Horse (the '' Rosy Hours ") 
dancing around it, and Aurora on the wing scattering 
flowers before it. It covers almost the entire ceil- 
ing of an apartment of, perhaps, twenty-five feet by 
eighteen. 

I need not say that Rome is the favorite home of 
artists from all parts of the world, and of not a few 



278 MODERN ROME. 

from America. I was in the studios of several of 
our sculptors, and should do wrong were I to speak 
of some of them, as my limits will not permit me to 
speak of all. I was in the studios of but three 
American painters in Rome, — that of Mr. Ropes, 
who shows great fidelity, pure taste, and skilful ex- 
ecution in his landscapes ; that of Mr. Hamilton 
Wild, who has been wonderfully successful in single 
figures and groups, both Italian and Spanish ; and 
that of Mr. Tilton, who appears to me unsurpassed 
among recent painters in rendering on canvas the 
peculiar tints of the Italian heavens. 

A few words about the general aspect of Rome. 
There seems to be no medium between the splendid 
and the squalid. Except in the region where stran- 
gers congregate, which is not extensive, there are 
very few houses that are intermediate in style and 
quality between the palaces (many of which have 
become lodging-houses, or are leased in single apart- 
ments or suites of rooms) and dwellings absolutely 
mean and utterly comfortless in their whole aspect. 
The interior of the poorer houses is cheerless in the 
extreme. The lower story is lighted only through 
the open door, and all the household and needle 
work that demands the use of the eye must be per- 
formed near the door or outside of it. In seeking 
some ruin in the rear of such a house, I was cour- 
teously invited to pass through it, and though it was 
midday, I needed to be led through apartments in 
which I could not see my own hand. 



BAD POLICE. 279 

The streets are dirty, and most of them narrow. 
Beggars swarm everywhere, and a defect or deform- 
ity sufficiently painful or revolting to second the 
appeal for alms, seems to be considered as a God- 
send. Next to the beggars, the roasters and vend- 
ers of chestnuts — the mammoth chestnuts some- 
times seen at our street-corners — are, if not the 
most numerous, the most conspicuous portion of the 
population. They establish their furnaces at short 
intervals all over the citv ; but it seems to me that 
if they do not feed altogether on their own wares, 
they cannot make a living profit. I dare not say 
how cheap tlieir chestnuts are ; but I know that 
I could not find a copper coin small enough to 
buy me as few chestnuts as I needed, though, on 
a chilly day, I used them both for fuel and for food, 
warming my hands with them till they grew cold, 
and then eating them. 

Rome is undoubtedly the worst governed city in 
the civilized world. It is deemed unsafe to go out 
alone after dark. One who does so incurs a double 
risk, of assault and robbery by some desperado, and 
of being shot by the Pope's guard ; for, while the 
police are utterly powerless for the purposes for 
which they are needed, there is a most vigilant 
watch maintained against whatever looks like polit- 
ical discontent or treasonable design. There are 
certain locahties — especially a long flight of steps 
leading from the Piazza di Spagna to the church La 
Trinita de' Monti, over which strangers are fre- 



280 MODERN ROME. 

qiiently passing — at which the sentinels are ordered 
to fire if their challenge is not instantly answered ; 
and a foreigner thus challenged is in danger of hes- 
itating from sheer ignorance of what he ought to 
say. 

While the French troops occupied Rome, the city 
was much safer than it is now. They were an ef- 
ficient police, and were not stupid enough to shoot 
an inoffensive stranger for his unreadiness in a for- 
eign tongue. One of the first measures of the 
Papal government, after the French troops were 
withdrawn, was to drive beyond the walls of the 
city all Protestant worship. When I left Rome, 
the American chapel, a room in a private house, 
under the flag of the embassy, was the only Prot- 
estant place of worship remaining open, and that, if 
I am rightly informed, has since been closed. 

Another measure of the Papal administration, 
adopted at the same time, was to restore the old 
right of sanctuary to the churches, so that a crim- 
inal who can find shelter in a church is free from 
arrest. As there is a church every few rods, he 
must be very lame or very foolish, who cannot elude 
the ministers of justice. One day, while I was in 
Rome, some zealous police officers had the effrontery 
to chase a thief up the high steps of a church. A 
priest came out, let the rascal in, shut the door upon 
him, and then took down the names of his pursuers, 
to be reported for censure or punishment as guilty 
of sacrilege. Does the Pope mean to verify what 



THE ENVIRONS. 281 

the Divine Teacher said to the Jews about their 
" house of prayer," " Ye have made it a den of 
thieves?" Under his auspices crime was assuming, 
in the winter of 1866-67, a degree of audacity 
unknown under the French regime. One morning 
before sunrise, on the Piazza di Spagna, the most 
pubhc place in the city, a baker, serving his early 
customers, was knocked down, and robbed of the 
contents of his tray ; and similar deeds of violence 
were reported almost daily. 

There seemed to be during that winter, and I 
believe there are now, no serious symptoms of im- 
mediately impending revolution ; but the prevalent 
belief was that the Pope's temporal power was fast 
approaching its terminus, and measures of the kind 
I have specified are certainly not adapted to retard 
that consummation. 

The environs of Rome are very beautiful. One 
of my most pleasant excursions from the city was 
in the train of a fox-hunt. Arrangements are made 
for this sport every Monday and Thursday during 
the season. On the occasion on which I was pres- 
ent, there were, perhaps, forty mounted hunters, male 
and female, in picturesque costume, half as many 
hounds, and a hundred carriages. In one of the 
carriages, 'by invitation from a party of friends, I 
drove about eight miles, to the summit of Monte 
Mario. The Apennines were white with a fr'esh 
fall of snow. Soracte ^ stood out, alone and snow- 

1 " Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum 
Soracte." 



282 MODERN ROME. 

crowned, in the distance. In the transparent blue 
of the atmosphere we beheld the Campagna, with its 
varied green, and its shghtlj undulating surface, 
for the distance of many leagues, till it seemed 
gradually to melt into sea ; and, though the Medi- 
terranean was far out of sight, the horizon looked 
as if it were bounded by the ocean on every side. 

At some distance outside of the city gates is the 
Protestant cemetery, filled principally with the 
graves of Enghshmen and Americans. There are 
many very beautiful monuments and touching in- 
scriptions, among them not a few names that are 
the world's property. The bodies of Keats and 
Shelley, or rather, the ashes of the latter, lie here 
with very plain headstones, bearing the inscriptions 
with which most of my readers must be familiar. 
The wall of this cemetery abuts upon the old Ro- 
man monument of Caius Sextus, — a pyramid more 
than a hundred feet high, with a very small sepul- 
chral chamber, in which it is supposed that no one 
has ever been laid except the man whose name it 
bears. It is cased throughout with marble, once 
white, now black through age. 

In connection with Rome, and as one of the most 
interesting objects in Italy, I will close this chapter 
by describing the Falls of Terni, about two hours 
by rail from Rome, on the way to Florence. The 
falls are artificial, and though their direction has 
been somewhat changed since, they are the result 



THE FALLS OF TEKNL 283 

of a bold experiment in engineering more than two 
thousand years ago, by which the waters of the 
VeHnus, now Vehno, with those of several lakes 
connected with it, were poured over a descent of 
more than a thousand feet into the Nar, or Nera. 
These falls cannot be anywhere surpassed in grand- 
eur. I saw them, indeed, under favorable circum- 
stances, after very heavy rains ; but as I saw them, 
Niagara does not present an aspect of greater sub- 
limity; and, though the actual volume of water 
must be immeasurably less, the apparent volume is 
at least as great as that of Niagara. The fall is 
made in three successive leaps, — the first of only 
fifty feet ; the second, of more than six hundred 
feet ; the third, inclined at a slight angle fi*om the 
perpendicular, completing the descent to the Nera. 
The road from the village of Terni to the falls, 
ascends by a very steep grade, bringing into view 
an ever expanding panorama of valley, glen, and 
ravine, with the River Nera running quietly at a 
great depth below. Suddenly, as we turn a sharp 
angle, we come upon the Velino, at the point where 
it rushes over the first precipice. It is of a deep 
yellow, broken by the rocks over which it falls into 
wreaths and whirlpools of crested foam, and then 
into smoke-like spray, which rises in a vast cloud 
above the hills, and spreads for a great distance 
around. The main fall is as broad, if I can trust 
the measurement of my eye, as the broadest seg- 
ttient of Niagara, and there are several lesser cata* 



284 MOi^fiRN ROME. 

racts, each with its own peculiar setting of yolK and 
vegetation, and all so intensely yellow, as to look 
more like the product of some Cyclopean chemical 
laboratory, than like sheets of water. 

We descended by a winding path to the bottom 
of the falls, and as we looked up, the water seemed 
to be actually poured down from the clouds. This 
lower view is the most subHme view of falling water 
that has ever met my eye. At the same time, we 
had around us in that deep gorge the most superb 
hill and mountain scenery, — the precipices that 
hemmed us in rising to the height of more than a 
thousand feet, and above them, the white summits 
of the Apennines. The rocks here are very pictu- 
resque. Some of them contain wonderful petrifac- 
tions of leaves and twigs. Some of them have been 
carved by the water into forms in which can be 
traced grotesque likenesses to man, and bird, and 
beast. One extensive series of cliffs is composed 
wholly of beautiful alabaster, in alternate layers of 
white and red. 

I would rather have lost some of the most re- 
nowned cities of Continental Europe, than not to 
have seen the Falls of Terni. 



CHAPTER XII. 

GERMANY. 

Nuremberg. — Aspect of Antiquity. — Fountains and Markets. — In- 
struments of Torture. — Old Curiosity Shop. — Honor to Distin- 
guished Natives. — Prague. — Hymns to the Virgin. — Cathedral 
of St. Vitus. — The Judenstadt. — Old Synagogue — Church-cus- 
toms. — Heidelberg. — Castle. — Fair. — Market. — Baden-Baden. 

— Castles, Old and New. — High Play. — Hot Springs. — Freiberg. 

— School of Mines. — Practical Mining. 

I HAVE quite fall notes of what I saw in the great 
capitals and chief cities ordinarily embraced in a 
European tour ; but about most of them, I fear I 
should say nothing new. I certainly should write 
a chapter about Venice, had not Mr. Howells, in 
his recent book, described admirably well all that I 
saw and felt there, and much more. I wish I could 
occupy new ground ; but, though I travelled quite 
extensively, at what place could I have sojourned, 
where my fellow-countrymen would not have pre- 
ceded or followed me, and where many of my read- 
ers would not track me, and verify my reminis- 
cences by their OAvn ? I will, however, in my closing 
chapter, deviate a little from the inevitable route of 
a tourist, and describe, I will not say some of the 



286 GERMANY. 

seldom visited, but some of the less frequently vis- 
ited cities of Germany. 

W I am sure that any of my readers who have been 
at Nuremberg, will be glad to go thither again with 
me. It is the most perfectly unique city in the 
civilized world, — hardly less a fossil city than 
Pompeii, yet not without a multitudinous, busy, 
and prosperous life of its own, and though fossil, 
undecayed and untarnished, — as fresh, clean, and 
bright as if it were no older than San Francisco or 
Chicago. What is . very strange, it is a railway 
station ; yet it seems rather to bend the steam-giant 
to its ways than to take on his. In that region, the 
fastest trains average hardly more than fifteen miles 
an hour, and the time-tables of the merchandise and 
slow trains might invite the rivalry of an enterpris- 
ing equestrian. The stations are frequent, — many 
of them insignificant, indeed ; but if there be no 
passenger to leave or take, the train stops till every 
functionary belonging to it has interchanged saluta- 
tions and hat-liftings with all the functionaries at 
the station. 

There is no place which it is so difficult to de- 
scribe to an American as Nuremberg, — everything 
is so steeped in a more venerable antiquity than we 
know, and not only everything, but the people 
equally. Even the babies look antiquated, and are 
dressed in ancestral fashions, so as to remind one 
vividly of the scriptural saying about the child " a 
hundred vears old." 



NUREMBERG. 287 

The city is, and always lias been rich ; and the 
inhabitants, taking pride in antiquity, have kept up 
the old in its original forms, but where needed, with 
fresh materials, instead of demolishing and rebuild- 
ing. Thus within the walls there is nothing ruin- 
ous, and nothing new. When a part of a build- 
ing becomes dilapidated, it is repaired in the pris- 
tine style, so that the portion supplied looks as 
if it had always been there. The population has, 
however, extended considerably beyond the walls ; 
and the outside portion of the city makes no dis- 
guise of its newness, flaunts its bright colors, dis- 
penses with superfluous gables, and has all its car- 
penter's work done on the plumb and square. 

Nuremberg; lies on both sides of the little river 
Pegnitz, which, within the walls, is crossed by fre- 
quent bridges. The river-banks in the suburbs 
present tame but attractive scenery, with frequent 
gardens and ornamented grounds, and with two or 
three public tea-gardens in admirably well chosen 
sites. 

The two concentric walls that surround the city 
are high, thick, and massive, superbly mantled with 
ivy. Between the outer and the inner wall is a 
deep ditch, now dry, and for the most part occu- 
pied for gardens. There were formerly three hun- 
dred and sixty-five towers on the walls. There 
remain about a hundred, some of which are singu- 
larly beautiful specimens of mediaeval architecture 
and masonry. 



288 GERMANY. 

The city has several pubhc fountains that are 
fully as ornamental as they are useful. One of 
them has appropriated to itself a name which, in 
strict justice, belongs to them all, — ScTione Brun- 
nen^ " Beautiful Fountain." It is an octagonal pyr- 
amid in open stone-work, more than fifty feet high, 
with innumerable carved figures, and twenty-four 
life size statues, — eight in an upper tier represent- 
ing Moses and seven other prophets, and in a lower 
tier sixteen, embracing seven Bavarian Electors, 
and nine names conspicuous in the annals of hero- 
ism, and chosen in equal numbers from the Pagan, 
Jewish, and Christian camps. Near this is the 
Goose Fountain, in which a man has a goose under 
each arm, and the water flows from the mouths of 
the geese. In the vicinity of this fountain is the 
Goose Market, almost wholly given up to the use 
indicated by its name ; and if I was authorized to 
judge by the supply I saw at the market, I should 
have supposed a goose predestined, that day, for 
every spit in Nuremberg. The geese are offered 
for sale alive, tethered by wisps of straw to the 
wicker baskets in which they are brought. Another 
market seemed similarly devoted to the sale of 
young pigs, which, being also sold alive, were 
equally eligible for the table and the sty. The 
markets, of which there are several besides these, 
have all a most exemplary neatness and order, and 
are all served chiefly by peasant women, who wear 
two or three different, and very peculiar and gro- 



CHURCHES IN NUREMBERG. 289 

tesque costumes, the badges of their respective races 
or nationahties. The prevalent head-dress is that 
of the Bavarian peasantry, — a very high turret- 
shaped structure just behind the crown, swathed 
with a red scarf, which is then wrapped round the 
whole head, and hangs over the neck. 

There are several magnificent churches here, all 
but one Protestant, all rich in objects of art, and 
all adorned to a great degree by native artists, — 
by Albert Diirer, architect, painter, and sculptor, 
Adam KrafFt, sculptor, and Peter Vischer, bronze- 
founder, wdio were all contemporaries ; while in the 
same generation the city gave birth to Hans Sachs 
and to Melancthon (or Schwarzerd^ " Black Earth," 
which was his family name, by him translated into 
Greek). The houses of Diirer, Vischer, and Sachs 
are still standing, and that of Diirer is most appro- 
priately occupied by a society of artists. In the 
Church of St. Lawrence there is a very remarkable 
work by Kraflft. It is a sanctuary (that is, a re- 
pository for the elements of the Eucharist), in form 
pyramidal, of stone, with numerous figures of sacred 
and ecclesiastical personages, some in relief, others 
in groups of detached statues, and with a great 
deal of the most delicate carved work, — the whole 
representing the principal scenes and events of the 
Saviour's Passion. This structure reaches to the 
ceiling, and seems to bend under it, its apex assum- 
ing the form of a bent twig. The whole is sus- 
tained on the shoulders and backs of the kneeling 

19 



290 GERMANY. 

figures of KrafFt and his two assistants, which are 
said to have been perfect hkenesses. 

I visited several of the oldest and best of the 
houses, and I have nowhere else seen domestic 
architecture so rich. I have, indeed, seen houses 
as costly, palaces much more so ; but not even in 
kings' palaces liave I beheld such elaboration of 
design and delicacy of finish in all the details of 
house-building as may be witnessed here. The 
houses are, in general, ornamented with carved work 
and sculpture on the outside, and in the interior, 
the decorations are such as could have become 
general only at an epoch when the love of art was 
the ruling passion of the people, as we know it was 
in Nuremberg in the age of her great men. Many 
of the best houses have very low eaves, roofs with 
a heavy pitch, and three, four, or five stories within 
the gable ; but in this case, the gable either faces 
the street, or stands on a corner, and is so shaped 
and ornamented as to be the glory of the house. 

In one of the towers on the wall are the apart- 
ments occupied by the King of Bavaria, when he 
visits this portion of his kingdom. They retain the 
original style of finishing, and are fitted up w4th a 
plain and substantial elegance, contrasting strongly 
with the gaudiness of his magnificent residence at 
Munich. Attached to the royal residence are two 
very old chapels, one above the other, containing 
interesting specimens of the best art of their times. 

In another part of the same tower are preserved 



OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 291 

the instruments of torture that were used in the 
Middle Ages in the (so-called) administration of 
justice. Beneath every depth is a lower deep. On 
my way from this tower, I felt as if I had sounded 
the lowermost abyss of cruelty, and witnessed ves- 
tiges of the most diabolical aspects of humanity. 
But I went thence to the dungeons of the Heim- 
liclie Gerichte (Secret Tribunal), which formerly 
extended its irresponsible despotism throughout Ger- 
many ; and there I found cells much deeper and 
darker than those of the Mamertine Prison, trial- 
rooms very far beneath the ground, into which no 
ray of daylight ever penetrated, and instruments of 
torment more horrible than, had I not seen them, 
I should have supposed within the range of human 
ingenuity. Most horrible of all is the Jungfrau 
or Madchen, — a figure of the Holy Virgin, which 
opened to receive the prisoner, closed upon him with 
knives that literally cut him in pieces, and re-opened 
to drop the victim into a well some hundreds of 
feet below. Is not the time coming when men will 
regard the mutual laceration, maiming, and slaughter 
of human beings in foreign and civil war, as we 
now regard these tortures, which, three centuries 
ago, were deemed, not only consistent with the 
Christian law of right, but absolutely requisite for 
the well-being of society and the defence of the true 
faith ? 

Among other odd places, I visited an old curios- 
ity shop, from which Dickens, if he ever was in 



292 GERMANY. 

Nuremberg, must have derived his shop so entitled ; 
kept too, by a man as old, as weird, and as unlike 
other people as Little Nell's grandfather was. It 
occupies and fills all the stories and rooms of a very 
large old house, — the simple domestic concerns of 
the little family as to bed and board, being not fenced 
in by any geographical line. It contains antiquities 
of every conceivable kind, — furniture, armor, jew- 
elry, watches (including several of the Nuremberg 
eggs^ as the first watches made there were not inap- 
propriately called), plate, books, costumes, pictures. 
There are two other similar, but less extensive es- 
tablishments of the kind in the city. 

Nuremberg is famous all over the world for the 
manufacture of toys. I went into no factory ex- 
pressly designed for that purpose ; but I found toys 
of a great many varieties and of very curious styles 
among the products of an immense papier-mache 
manufactory, where also I saw the most perfect imi- 
tations of all kinds of fruit. Indeed, on leaving that 
establishment, it seemed to me that there was no 
substance in the visible universe which might not 
have its fac-simile in papier-mache. 

The Mathhaus, or City Hall, is interesting as con- 
taining some of Diirer's best pictures on canvas, 
and an entire wall of the great council chamber was 
frescoed by him. From beneath this building, sub- 
terranean passages run in almost every direction, 
having been constructed in turbulent times, to facil- 
itate the escape of the magistrates in any public 
commotion. 



PRAGUE. 293 

The churchyard of St. John, containing the 
graves of Diirer and Hans Sachs, is a very curious 
cemetery. The monuments, which are numbered 
up to thirty-five hundred, and crowded very close to- 
gether, are generally huge, solid blocks of stone, cut 
into an oblong form, with small bronze plates let into 
the upper surface for inscriptions. Between a house 
which now bears the name of " Pilate's House " 
and the gate of the cemetery are seven pillars, placed 
at regular intervals, with bass-reliefs representing 
scenes in the Saviour's Passion, executed by Adam 
Kraflft. Their origin was in this wise. Ketzel, a 
citizen who owned and occupied what has since been 
termed " Pilate's House," wishing to attest his de- 
votion by some costly gift, determined to measure 
out and adorn, between his then dwelling and what 
he supposed to be his last home, stations corre- 
sponding to those on the Via Dolorosa, the way of 
Jesus from the house of Pilate to Calvary. He 
went to Jerusalem to measure the distances, lost his 
memoranda on his way home, and returned to Pal- 
estine to repeat the measurement. 

It was pleasant to witness the pride of the 
Nurembergers in the illustrious men to whom their 
city has given birth, whose names the visitor finds 
constantly recurring, and whose memory seems less 
like transmitted fame than a living presence. 

I went from Nuremberg to Prague. This is a 
wonderfully picturesque place, lying cm both sides 



294 GERMAN r. 

of the Moldau, climbing lofty acclivities, and over- 
looked and commanded by the Hradschin, the vast, 
rambling palace of the old Bohemian kings. About 
half of the inhabitants are Bohemians, and speak 
their native language. Almost every sign is painted 
double, in Bohemian and German. 

The Moldau is here quite broad, and a very ma- 
jestic stream. It is crossed by two bridges, — one 
an exceedingly graceful iron suspension bridge ; 
the other said to be the longest and the most mag- 
nificent bridge in Germany, profusely adorned on 
both sides by massive groups of statuary. The 
building of this bridge was commenced under the 
auspices of Charles IV. At its eastern extremity 
stands a monument built in 1848, to commemorate 
the close of the fifth century of the University. In 
this, the bronze statue of Charles IV. is the princi- 
pal figure ; in niches at the sides of the pedes- 
tal are seated allegorical figures representing the 
four Faculties, Arts, Theology, Law and Medicine ; 
and at the angles are portrait-statues of four illus- 
trious contemporaries of the Emperor. 

On my first evening at Prague, I witnessed a very 
impressive religious service. Near the principal 
market is a high pillar, surmounted by a bronze 
statue of the Virgin Mary, with a shrine for her 
worship just above the pedestal. Passing in that 
neighborhood, I heard singing, and going to the 
spot, I found the shrine lighted, and some forty or 
fifty women in front of it, singing hymns to the 



CATHEDRAL AT PRAGUE. 295 

Virgin. The music was inexpressibly sweet and 
tender. Thej all seemed to be poor women, some 
with children in their arms, some with baskets on 
their backs, most of them with a handkerchief or 
shawl for their only head-dress ; and for a part of 
the time they knelt on the cold pavement, though 
the air was even frosty. I learned that this service 
is commenced every first of May, — May being the 
month specially consecrated to the worship of the 
Virgin, — and is continued till the approach of win- 
ter puts an enforced period to it. 

The principal church, or Cathedral, is dedicated 
to St. Vitus. Though smaller, it bears in its gen- 
eral style and aspect a striking resemblance to the 
Cologne Cathedral, and is, like that, unfinished, 
though commenced in the fourteenth century. It 
contains a most magnificent mausoleum, constructed 
wholly of marble and alabaster, in which several 
emperors of Germany and kings of Bohemia have 
been interred. One of the side chapels of this 
church is composed entirely of rare and precious 
stones, principally amethysts and jaspers, arranged 
in a sort of coarse mosaic, and representing scenes 
in the Saviour's life, and other sacred themes. In 
this church also is a huge and very old candelabrum, 
which the inhabitants believe to have been brought 
fi^om Solomon's Temple. One of the chapels con- 
tains the shrine of the patron saint of Bohemia, 
John Nepomuk,-^ which probably is not exceeded in 
1 Canonized in the hearts of the people, several centuries before hia 



296 GERMANY. 

costliness and splendor by any similar structure in 
the world. It is constructed wholly of wrought 
silver, weighing about two tons. Within is a silver 
coffin, supposed to contain the saint's body, which 
is held poised in the air by silver angels of human 
size. Around the coffin are silver candelabra, in 
which candles are kept perpetually burning ; and 
the whole is surmounted by four silver angels who 
seem to be hovering in the air. 

Next to the Cathedral in interest is the Teyn- 
kirche, formerly belonging to the Hussites, though 
now Roman Catholic. Tycho Brahe was buried 
here. His monument in red marble has a bust of 
him in relief, and is inscribed with his favorite 
motto, Esse potius quam Tiaheri^ " To be rather 
than to be esteemed." In a side-chapel are two 
very beautiful statues of the first Christian mission- 
aries to Bohemia, and an altar with bass-reliefs of 
the baptism and the first communion of the earliest 
Bohemian converts. 

On the public square on which this church stands 
is the very magnificent RatJihaus^ or City Hall, a 
Gothic edifice finished some twenty years ago, but 
retaining a facade, portal, and tower of the four- 
sainthood was decreed at Rome. He was the confessor of the queen 
of King Wenceslas. The king ordered him to be drowned in the 
Moldau, because he would not betray the secrets of the confessional, 
which the monarch, in a fit of jealousy, imagined (probably without 
reason) would be damaging to the honor of his wife, St. John Nepo- 
muk is, therefore, not inaptly invoked as a protector against slander 
and slanderers. 



THE JUDENSTADT. 297 

teenth or fifteenth century? — the tower having a 
clock even more remarkable than that of Bern, in 
which a figure of Time strikes the hour, and the 
Twelve Apostles come out and move in solemn pro- 
cession when the hour is struck. 

The Jewish population of Prague is said to be 
not far from ten thousand. They were formerly 
confined to a particular district of the city, which 
bears the name of Judenstadt, and most of them 
live there now, though the richer Israelites are fast 
emigrating to more airy and salubrious quarters. 
The Judenstadt is a labyrinth of mean, narrow, 
crooked, dirty streets, with large, old, dilapidated 
houses, as densely peopled as the most crowded 
sections of New York and London, but, unlike 
them, abounding more in haggard old women than 
in children. It is the only place where I have 
ever encountered smells more noisome than the 
odors of Cologne. Yet the sanitary statistics show 
a considerably greater average longevity among the 
Jews than among the Christians. 

In the heart of the Judenstadt is an old Jewish 
burial-ground, in which the headstones stand so 
close together that it is difficult to tread between 
them. The stones are upright and very thick slabs 
of dark slatestone, covered all over with Hebrew 
inscriptions. Near this cemetery is the old syna- 
gogue, held in the most profound reverence by all 
^he Hebrews. Three or four centuries ago, some 
laborers, in digging, came upon what proved to be 



298 GERMANY. 

the walls of a synagogue, of the existence of which 
there was neither record nor tradition. With re- 
gard to its actual age, there are opinions that range 
over at least ten centuries, — the Jews maintain- 
ing that it was built by the first exiles of their race 
who settled in Prague, not long after the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem. I could see nothing to militate 
against this theory ; and if it were said to have 
been built when Noah left the ark, appearances 
would accord with the hypothesis. It may have 
been originally subterranean, and designed for a se- 
cret place of worship ; or it may have been buried 
by the elevation of the ground around it. However 
this may be, the Jews cleared the ruins from rub- 
bish, roofed it over, and made it their specially holy 
place. They show a tattered parchment manuscript 
of the Pentateuch which was found in it. Of 
course the building is damp and dark. It is the 
dirtiest place I was ever in, redolent of mould, tal- 
low, and rancid oil, its walls absolutely greasy 
with lampblack, the tabernacle and reading-desk 
looking as if they had possessed a certain comeliness 
centuries ago, but could hardly hold together now. 
It is only a less dreary place than the dungeons at 
Nuremberg. It has no gallery for women ; but a 
narrow corridor runs along one side of the building, 
with bull's-eyes looking into the synagogue, and 
there the women stand, and see what they can 
through the thick glass. There is a very spacious 
and handsome synagogue hard by ; but this ancient 
edifice is used for all the great festivals. 



PRAGUE. 299 

I noticed in the Prague cliurclies two customs, 
which, perhaps, are not peculiar; but I saw them 
nowhere else. One is the traffic in candles during 
divine service. While mass is performing, even 
during the elevation of the host, an old woman 
goes round among the kneeling worshippers, with a 
bunch of dipped candles. The persons whom she 
accosts, if devoutly disposed, buy one, two, three, or 
half a dozen each. She pockets the money, lights 
the candles, and places them in an iron frame duly 
pierced for their reception, with a large dripping- 
pan beneath, very near the altar. The other cus- 
tom is this : The friends of a deceased person 
erect in the church a scutcheon wreathed with 
black, having inscribed on it his name, and a re- 
quest to the faithful to pray for him, and to this is 
attached a socket holding a very large candle, 
which is lighted while mass is said for the repose of 
his soul. 

Prague has the aspect of extensive business, 
great activity, and abundant wealth. The shops 
are very showy. There are many palatial resi- 
dences, with extensive parks and gardens sump- 
tuously and tasteftilly laid out. There are several 
promenades on very high ground, overlooking the 
city, and commanding an almost Swiss range and 
diversity of scenery, including, on the north, the 
nearer summits of the Saxon Alps. 

We will now pass from the East to the West 



300 GERMANY. 

of Germany, and pause at Heidelberg. Here the 
principal object of interest is the Castle, which is 
the most extensive and magnificent mediaeval ruin 
in Continental Europe, and second only to Foun- 
tains Abbey in the civilized world. The Castle 
is on the brow of a hio;h hill, which towers directly 
behind the city. It was commenced in the thir- 
teenth century ; it was largely added to and em- 
bellished in subsequent times ; and the most mag- 
nificent portions of it were built by the unfortunate 
Elector Frederic V., who became king of Bohemia, 
and married the daughter of James I. of England, 
but whose wife and children were, in after years, 
dependent on scanty charity for the necessaries 
of life. A part of the castle was blown up by 
the French in 1689 ; it has been twice struck by 
lightning ; it has been repeatedly captured and 
dismantled ; and yet enough of it remains standing 
to make it one of the wonders of the world. The 
walls are, in some parts, seventeen feet thick. The 
portion that was blown up is an immense fragment 
of a tower, which separated from the rest entire, 
and still reposes unbroken, in part on the main wall 
of the tower, in part in the ditch below. The 
English Tower, so called in honor of the English 
princess who commenced life so brilliantly here, 
still shows the two most richly ornamented fronts 
that I have ever seen, — walls not less than sixty 
feet high, decked and surmounted, in every space 
that will admit of such occupancy, with statues 



HEIDELBERG. 301 

and figures in relief, — a large number of them bear- 
ing tokens of a very high order of artistical 
merit. Many of the figures are entire, and as 
beautiful as when they came from the sculptor's 
hand. Others are mutilated, — here a nose sliced 
away, there a leg wanting. In one case, a head 
has rolled oflp and back, and lodged between the 
neck and the wall, producing an aspect of the 
most grotesque deformity. What makes these 
ruins the more impressive is that not only are they 
clothed with ivy whose huge stalks indicate a great 
age, but in some parts, large trees are growing 
out of the earth that has gathered on the top of 
the thick walls, and in one place, there is quite a 
dense grove on the roof of a ruined tower. 

Among the curiosities of the Castle is the cele- 
brated Heidelberg Tun, shaped like a hogshead laid 
lengthwise, twenty-three feet in diameter, and 
holding sixty thousand gallons. Two flights of 
steps lead to the top of it, and over the top, around 
the buns-hole, is a floor which was formerlv used 
for dancing. This tun has been four times filled 
with wine, but has now been empty for nearly a 
century. Hard by it, is another lesser tun that 
holds fifty thousand gallons. 

Heidelberg contains little else of peculiar in- 
terest to transient visitors. The University, which 
gives it much of its celebrity, is second to none of 
the German universities, and has one of the most 
valuable, though not one of the largest libraries 



302 GERMANY. 

in Europe ; but its building is almost mean. The 
churches, though externally handsome, are meagre 
as to works of art. One of them is remarkable as 
having been occupied for centuries by both Roman- 
ists and Protestants, — a thick partition wall run- 
ning between the nave and the choir, the former 
belonging to the Lutherans, the latter to the Cath- 
olics. 

The most noteworthy building within the city 
is a house used as an inn, erected in 1592, the 
whole front of which is of the most elaborate 
carved work in a stone now black with age, with 
several finely executed medallions and busts. It 
was built by a French Protestant who barely 
escaped by flight the St. Bartholomew's massacre, 
and it still bears several devout inscriptions, in Latin, 
commemorative of his gratitude. 

Heidelberg lies in the valley of the Neckar, and 
is surrounded by the most charming scenery. I 
arrived there in the midst of a great semi-annual 
fair, which gave me an excellent opportunity of 
seeing German costumes, manners, and life. On 
the public square and in the broader streets, long 
lines of wooden booths were erected, and goods of 
every conceivable description exposed for sale. 
There were also exhibitions of Punch and Judy, 
of waxwork, and of second-rate pictures and stat- 
uary, and booths of fortune-tellers and clairvoy- 
ants. Then there were stalls in which there was 
perpetual cooking, and from whose savory windows 



BADEN-BADEN. 303 

waffles and cakes, nondescript and marvellous, were 
urged in their smoking charms upon all passers-by. 
There was an untold amount of beer-drinking, un- 
doubtedly with its concomitant stupidity and brut- 
ishness ; but there was no demonstrative drunken- 
ness, no riot, no loud talking. With thousands of 
people spending the night in these booths, which 
extended to within a few feet of my window, I 
should not have known, an hour after nightfall, that 
there was a stranger in the city. This may have 
been in part due to a bad cause ; for beer is a sop- 
orific of no little efficacy. 

The morning market at Heidelberg presents a 
very amusing spectacle. There is no market build- 
ing or place ; but for nearly half a mile on each 
side of the principal street, the market-women ar- 
range themselves on the margin of the sidewalk, 
facing the middle of the street, almost in uniform, 
with coarse gingham dresses, and gingham handker- 
chiefs tied over their heads. Each has a basket 
at her feet, and each holds in her hands a specimen 
of her wares, — one a goose, another a head of cab- 
bage, another a pat of butter on a cabbage-leaf. 
The purchasers pass between the two rows, ex- 
amine the articles as they are extended for inspec- 
tion, and make their purchases from the baskets. 

Two hours by rail carried me from Heidelberg 
to Baden-Baden. Nothing can exceed the quiet 
autumnal beauty, in which I saw this city and its 



304 GERMANY. 

suburbs. Of course, in so great a watering-place 
there is much showy architecture, — most of it, 
however, in good taste ; but Art here is hterally 
smothered by Nature. Undoubtedly the same in- 
terior fires that heat the waters, intensify and pro- 
long the summer verdure. I saw here, but nowhere 
else in Europe, a diversity of tint corresponding 
to our forest scenery in autumn. The walks and 
drives in and about Baden-Baden are delightful 
beyond description, the country being densely wood- 
ed, and undulating in surface, with distant views of 
the Jura Alps. The city lies on the verge of the 
Black Forest, most fitly so named ; for the pine 
which forms its chief o;rowth is almost black. 

On a hill about a half-hour's drive from the city 
is the Old Castle, — a ruin much resembling that 
at Heidelberg, but less extensive, less massive, and 
with fewer tokens of architectural beauty. The 
New Castle (nearly two hundred years of age), 
which succeeded the old as the ducal residence, is 
near the foot of the hill. It is large and hand- 
some, but in the style of a modern dwelling-house, 
with little of the character of a fortress. It is chiefly 
remarkable for certain subterranean apartments older 
than itself, as to w^hich antiquaries are not agreed, 
whether they are Roman baths, or dungeons of the 
'' Geheime Gerichte." 

I spent two hours in the Kursaal, the celebrated 
gambling establishment. It is a building of great 
magnificence, with everything to attract visitors, 



GAMBLING AT BADEN-BADEN. 305 

and all its accommodations are opened without 
charge to the public, doubtless with the intent of 
entrapping those who have not yet acquired a passion 
for play. It contains a free and well-furnished read- 
ing-room, very seductive refreshment-rooms, and a 
room for concerts and balls, unequalled in splendor 
except by the ball-room in the royal residence at 
Munich. Throughout the season there is a free 
concert of instrumental music every evening, with 
seats enough for an audience of several hundred. 

From this hall open the two gambling rooms. In 
one of them the game is rouge et noij' ; the other 
has a roulette table. Both are games of mere 
chance, with no possible room for skill. In the 
former, the gambler bets on the turning up of red 
or black cards in a pack dealt by the master of the 
table ; in the latter, on the number against which, 
on a table with cardinal numbers painted all around 
its periphery, a little ball will rest, after an impulse 
given to it by a wheel in revolution. The one re- 
deeming feature — if there can be any in a business 
so full of guilt and misery — is that the players do 
not play against one another, but against the ba7ik, 
as the exchequer of the lessees is termed. If the 
player wins, the manager pushes toward him a sum 
equal to his stake, and he rakes that and his origi- 
nal venture to himself, often to risk the doubled sum 
on the next deal or the next revolution of the 
wheel, and so on till he loses his accumulated win- 
nings. If he loses, his money is raked into the 
20 



306 GERMANY. 

hank. Thus, although despair, utter recklessness, 
iiopeless ruin, and suicide are the frequent results oi 
gambling here, it does not directly produce the 
quarrels, feuds, assaults, duels, and murders, which 
are by no means rare events in the history of pri- 
vate gambhng. Then too, except that the whole 
bnsiness is atrocious dishonesty, the play here is 
fair. There is no opportunity for fraud. The 
bank, to be sure, almost always comes off largely 
the winner, but for psychological reasons, and not 
by the mere necessity of the game. The fact of 
the ultimate success of the bank at nearly every 
session, is a most instructive commentary on the in- 
sanity that maddens the gambler. The bank wins, 
because the player hardly ever retires with his 
early winnings, but keeps on hazarding larger and 
larger sums, until a single fatal bet sweeps away 
his original stock and his winnings together. 

Around each of the tables sat or stood some 
thirty or forty players, with perhaps twice that 
number of spectators, — some, like myself, mere 
spectators, with their interest, complacency, disap- 
proval, or disgust uttered, not in words (for dead 
silence reigns), but in looks no less expressive ; oth- 
ers waiting, with unconcealed solicitude, for a vacant 
place. Each of the players was armed with a small 
rake, with which he pushed his money to the spot 
or number which indicated the bet he intended to 
make, and if he won, drew his doubled money into 
his own custody. There were, among the players, 



THE SPRINGS AT BADEN-BADP:N. 307 

a good many fashionably dressed women, most of 
them old and ugly ; some, pretty and modestly at- 
tired, who may have been, a part of them at least, 
the stool-pigeons of the net. Most of the men had 
the dress and air of gentlemen ; but the larger 
part of them showed, in countenance and manner, 
the fierce passions that appertain to high play. 
Some looked savage ; some, desperate ; some, brutal. 
I cannot be mistaken in speaking of their physiog- 
nomy ; for I was not expecting what I witnessed. 
I thought I should see very much such a gathering 
of genteel-looking people as I should find in a Con- 
tinental ballroom. But either their work deforms 
them while they are engaged in it ; or else I saw a 
company of men and women on whom their ruling 
vice had set its indelible, foul, and detestable plague- 
spot. 

The most shameful fact connected with the es- 
tablishment is that it is owned by the Grand Duke, 
who gets an enormous rent from it. 

The springs, from which Baden (haths) derives 
its name, are all hot or warm springs, a hundred 
and fifty-six degrees being the temperature of the 
hottest. They are led by conduits under the streets 
to supply the various baths, and at many points in 
the streets are gratings, at which one could easily 
take a vapor-bath, and at which the hands or feet 
might be made comfortably warm on a winter's 
day. Some of the springs are used for bathing only. 
The water of others is taken internally ; but as, 



%8 GERMANY. 

though by no means appetizing, it does not taste 
very badly, it is not drunk with the avidity dis- 
played by those who seek health at more nauseous 
sources. There is a magnificent pump-room, where 
the water is drunk every morning by invalids and 
fashionables. This building has a very long, open 
portico, the walls of which are beautifally frescoed 
with legends of Baden and the Black Forest. The 
great square on which this and the Kursaal stand, 
is a promenade of singular beauty, — its paths lined 
with booths hardly less frail than those at the 
Heidelberg fair, certainly neither cold-proof, nor 
storm-proof, nor burglar-proof, yet filled with the 
most showy and sumptuous goods of every descrip- 
tion. 

In accordance with the rambling character of 
this chapter, I will again take my readers across 
Germany, to say a few words about a town which 
hardly any mere travellers from America visit, but 
where I found a large number of American stu- 
dents, among them no less than six of my own pu- 
pils, graduates of Harvard University. I mean 
Freiberg in Saxony, the seat of the celebrated 
School of Mines. The town lies in a dreary and 
desolate regiosi, and has not even an edifice in 
which one can take any interest, with the exception 
of a very splendid cathedral eight or nine centuries 
old, in which all the Protestant sovereigns of Sax- 
ony have been interred. This church is also re- 



THE FREIBERG MINES. 309 

markable for a very deep portal, the vault of which 
is filled with hundreds of figures in relief, exquis- 
itely carved in stone, and which has broad and mas- 
sive doors called the Golden Gates, having been 
originally plated with gold. 

The building of the School of Mines contains, of 
course, large mineralogical and geological cabinets, 
and especially — not of course — a remarkably rich 
collection of precious stones of every description. 
There is also a spacious apartment devoted to 
models of machinery, illustrating the several proc- 
esses of mining, together with models of various 
mines, their shafts, and their galleries. 

The Freiberg mines are commonly called the 
silver mines of Saxony ; but they are, in fact, lead 
mines. The ore is not very unlike the lead ore of 
Galena. It yields gold, silver, lead, arsenic, and 
blue vitriol. None of it contains more than a fourth 
of one per cent of silver, and the mass has to un- 
dergo at least a dozen smeltings to coax away the 
silver and refine it. Yet silver to the amount of 
two million dollars is annually obtained from this 
ore, which yields also about thirty thousand dollars 
worth of gold annually. I doubt whether the ex- 
traction of so small proportions of the precious 
metals would pay for itself where wages are high. 
But labor is so cheap there, that they can afford to 
work the ore over and over, as long as any value 
remains to be extracted fi'om it. The best work- 
men get only twelve groschen, or thirty cents a day. 



310 GERMANY. 

About a thousand laborers are employed in mining 
and smelting. I inquired, with no little curiosity, 
into the condition of men who are compelled to 
subsist on so scanty a pittance. I learned that they 
live mainly on black, that is, barley bread, and po- 
tato soup, and never eat meat oftener than once a 
week. They are, however, contented and intelli- 
gent. Their children are sent to school, are well 
taught, and are not permitted to labor in the mines 
or smelting works till fourteen years of age. 

I ought to express an opinion on such a subject 
with much diffidence ; but I left Freiberg with im- 
pressions both favorable and unfavorable as to its 
adaptation to the needs of American pupils. The 
place is preeminently fitted for study ; for there is 
nothing else that a young man can do, there are no 
distractions of any kind, and the spirit of the insti- 
tution is that of hard work, deep investigation, and 
scholarly ambition. The scientific instruction, I am 
inclined to think, is all that could be desired, — ele- 
mentary, comprehensive, systematic, thorough. But 
it seemed to me that, as a school of practical metal- 
lurgy, Freiberg must be very defective, for reasons 
connected with the low rate of wages. I thought 
I could see, in all the works, a lack of labor-saving 
machinery and processes, a rigid adherence to old 
methods, and a general looseness and slovenliness 
of management ; while the net revenue which ac- 
crues to the government, on whose account the 
mines are worked, as compared with their gross 



CONCLUSION. 311 

products, shows that the system is not essentially 
less costly than where high wages put a premium 
on invention and economy. 

My story is told. If I shall have satisfied the 
curiosity of any of my readers, — still more, if I 
shall have so awakened it as to induce them to sat- 
isfy it by following me in person where I have led 
them, I shall have made a happy and precious addi- 
tion to my lifelong " Reminiscences of European 
Travel." 



INDEX. 



.4ar, the, 110. 

A-cherusia Palus, ttie, 183. 

Agnano, Lake of, 181. 

Ainalfi, road to, 192; site and as- 
pect of, 194; cathedral of, 195. 

Ambrosian Library at Milan, 146. 

Antoninus Marcus, column of, 
234. 

Arc d'Etoile, at Paris, 167. 

Art, ancient and modern, 76 ; di- 
vine element in, 77; mission of, 
78 ; causes of the decline of, 97. 

Arthur's Seat, in Edinburgh, 69. 

Arveiron, source of the, 126. 

Avernus, 183. 

Baden-Baden, beauty of, 303 ; old 
and new castles of, 304; gam- 
bling at, 304; springs of, 307. 

Baise, supposed temples at, 187. 

Bank of England, 34. 

Basle, 104. 

Bellaggio, 140. 

Ben Nevis, 52. 

Bern, grotesqueness of, 115; clock- 
towers of, 116; bears in, 116; 
cathedral of, 117. 

Bologna, site and aspect of, 225; 
Academy of Fine Arts at, 226 ; 
Campo Santo of, 227. 

Borghese Villa, at Rome, 276. 

Boston, church of St. Botolph at, 
11 ; old houses in, 13 ; former and 
present condition of, 13. 

Boulevards of Paris, 158. 

Brienz, Lake of, 111. 

British Museum, 46. 

Brougham, Lord, 18. 

Brussels, carved pulpit in, 91. 



Caesars, palace of the, 233. 

Caledonian canal, 51. 

Calton Hill, in Edinburgh, 70. 

Campagna, the Roman, 252. 

Capitoline Hill, 231. 

Capri, shore of, 189 ; Blue Grotto 

of, 190; palace of Tiberius at, 

191. 
Capuchins, church of the, at Rome, 

275. 
Caracalla, Baths of, 236. 
Cardinals, state of the, 270. 
Castor and Pollux, statues of, on 

the Quirinal, 241. 
Catacombs, origin of, 245; of St. 

Callixtus, 247. 
Cavour, monument of, at Milan, 

144. 
Chamouny, vallev of, 125; sun- 
rise at, 129. 
Chapelle Expiatoire, at Paris, 163. 
Chester, aspect of, 3 ; cathedral of, 

4. 
Christ Church, in Dublin, 73. 
Christmas at St. Peter's, 267; at 

the Ara Coeli church, 272. 
Cloaca Maxima, the, 241. 
Col de Balme, the, 124. 
Colosseum, the, 237. 
Commons, House of, 16. 
Como, Lake of, 139; city of, 141; 

market at, 142. 
Correggio's Magdalen, 84. 
Costume of Italian peasants, 197. 
Cumsean Sibyl, cave of the, 184. 

Domenichino's Communion of St. 

Jerome, 266. 
Dying Gladiator, the, 93. 



814 



INDEX. 



Edinburgh, neAV and old city, 66 ; 
population of, 67; royal castle 
in, 68 ; scenery of, 69 ; Sunday 
in, 71. 

Elysian Fields, 184. 

England, love of antiquity prev- 
alent in, 4; wealth of, 6; veg- 
etation of, 6. 

English lakes, 60. 

Epiphany revels at Rome, 255. 

Fleg^re, the, 126. 
Fountains Abbey, 9. 
hoyers. Falls of the, 51. 
Freiberg, cathedral of, 308; mines 
of, 309 ; school of mines at, 310. 
Furca, the, 126. 

Geneva, aspect of, 117; washer- 

Avomen of, 118. 
Giessbach, Falls of the, 112. 
Glacier des Bossons, 129. 
Gladstone, Mr., 16. 
Goldsmith's work in the Middle 

Ages, 97. 
Grimsel Pass, the, 109. 
Grotto del Cane, 181. 
Guide's Madonna della Pieta, 226. 

Haddon Hall, 7. 
Hadrian's Villa, 249. 
Hall, Newman, 23. 
Handeck, Falls of the. 111. 
Heidelberg, castle of, 300; tun of, 

301 ; university of, 301 ; fair of, 

302; market of, 303. 
Holbein's Madonna, 82. 
Holyrood Palace, 68. 

Inscriptions, ancient, at Rome, 243. 

Interlachen, 112. 

Irish mendicancy, 58. 

Italian sky, the, 85. 

Italy, present condition of, 197; 

financial and industrial state of, 

198; religious toleration in, 199; 

progress of Protestantism in, 

199. 

Jardin d'Acclimatation, at Paris, 

171. 
Jardin des Plantes, at Paris, 170. 
Judenstadt, the, in Prague, 297. 
Jungfrau, the, 113. 



Killarney Lakes, 54. 

Lakes, Scotch, 50 ; Irish, 55 ; Eng- 
hsh, 60. 

Laocoon, the, 242. 

Last Judgment, the, in Sistine 
Chapel, 137. 

Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci's, 
144. 

Lausanne, aspect of, 119; cathe- 
dral of, 119. 

Lauterbrunnen, 113. 

Lincolnshire, fen-country of, 11. 

London, municipal organization 
of, 25; extent of, 25; climate 
of, 27 ; police of, 28 ; literary as- 
sociations with, 29; parks of, 31 ; 
heterogeneous character of, 32. 

Lords, House of, 16. 

Louvre, the, 169. 

Lucerne, views from, 105; Lake 
of, 105. 

Lugano, lake and city of, 137. 

Luke, St., pictures attributed to, 
274. 

Madeleine, church of the, at Paris, 

159. 
Maggiore, Lake, 136. 
Mamertine Prison, the, 240. 
Manuscripts from Herculaneum 

unrolled, 210. 
Martigny, 120. 
Martineau, Rev. James, 23. 
Mer de Glace, 128. 
Milan, cathedral of, 95; aspect of, 

144. 
Mill, John Stuart, 19. 
Monks at Rome, 275. 
Montanvert, the, 127. 
Mont Blanc, ascent of, 131. 
Monte Nuovo, 181. 
Mosaics, manufactory of, at the 

Vatican, 266. 
Moses, Michael Angelo's, 94. 

Naples, beauty of, 174 ; people of, 

175 ; climate of, 176 ; museum of, 

210. 
Napoleon I., tomb of, 168. 
Notre Dame, church of, at Paris, 

161. 
Nuremberg, ancient aspect of, 286 ; 

walls of, 287; fountains aud 



INDEX. 



315 



markets of, 288; churches in, 
289; houses in, 290; instruments 
of torture preserved at, 291 ; old 
curiosity shop in, 292; church- 
yard of St. John in, 29-3. 

Pantheon, the. in Paris, 160; in 
Rome, 238. ' 

Paris, manysidedness of, 148; 
order of, 149; brilliancy of, 150; 
industry' of, 151 ; manufactures 
of, 152; holidays in, 153; phil- 
anthropic institutions of, 155; 
education in, 156 ; paternal gov- 
ernment of, 156. 

Parliament, Houses of, 15. 

Pere la Chaise, cemeterv of, in 
Paris, 165. 

Perugia, site and aspect of, 222; 
churches in, 223; art in, 224. 

Perugino, Pietro, 224. 

Pisa, site and aspect of, 216 ; cathe- 
dral of, 217; baptistery of, 218; 
leaning tower of, 220; Campo 
Santo of, 221 ; church of Santa 
Maria della Spina in 222. 

Pompeii, destruction of, 201; 
streets of, 203; shops in, 204; 
houses in, 205 ; domestic life in, 
206 ; art in, 208 ; skeletons found 
in, 209 ; relics of, in the museum 
at Naples, 211; worth of, as a 
commentary on the classics, 
215. 

Pope, the, dress of, 268; appear- 
ance of, 272. 

Pozzuoli, Grotta di, 186; amphi- 
theatre of, 186; temple of 
Jupiter Serapis in, 187. 

Prague, aspect of, 293 ; worship of 
the Virgin Mary at, 294; cathe- 
dral of, 295 ; Teynkirche in, 
296 ; Jewish population of, 297 ; 
old synagogue in, 297; peculiar 
church customs in, 299. 

Pulpit eloquence in England, 19. 

Raphael's Sistine Madonna, 80; 
Transfiguration, 86 ; Staffa Ma- 
donna, 224 ; St. Cecilia, 226. 

Reuss, the, 108. 

Rigi, the, view from the summit 
of, 106; storm upon, 107. 

Rodgers' cutlery, 65. 



Romans, descendants of the an- 
cient, 254. 

Rome, first impressions of, 229 ; the 
Seven Hills of, 230; the Capitol 
of, 231 ; the Forum of, 232 ; baths 
of, 335; Colosseum, 237; aque- 
ducts of, 239; palaces in, 277; 
artists in, 277; general aspect 
of, 278; streets of, 279; police of, 
279; environs of, 282; Protes- 
tant cemetery in, 282. 

Royal Exchange in London, 35. 

Rubens, character of, as a painter, 
87 ; Elevation of the Cross by, 88; 
Descent from the Cross by, 89 ; 
The Flagellation by, 90; the 
Via Dolorosa by, 90. 

St. Ambrose's church, at Milan, 

145. 
St. Andrew's cathedral, at Amalfi, 

195. 
St. Clement's church, at Rome, 

244. 
St. Ferdinand, chapel of, at Paris, 

164. 
St. Gotthard, pass of, 108. 
St. John in the Lateran, church of, 

at Rome, 273. 
St. Patrick's cathedral at Dublin 

73. 
St. Paul's, at London, 43. 
St. Peter's, at Rome, exterior of, 

258; interior of, 259; dome of 

26L 
St. Petronius, church of, at Bo- 
logna, 225. 
St. Salvador, Mount, 138. 
St. Stephen's church, at Kome, 

274. 
St. Vitus, cathedral of, at Prague 

295. 
Salerno, 196. 
Saxon, Baths of, 121. 
Scala Santa, at Rome, 273. 
Scott, Sir Walter, monument of 

in Edinburgh, 70. 
Scottish Highlands, 51. 
Scottish Lakes, scenery of, 50 

literary associations with, 52. 
Sheffield, aspect of, 63 ; manufac- 
tures of, 64. 
Sherwood Forest, 7. 
Simplon, the, 132. 



316 



INDEX. 



Sistine Chapel, the, 262. 

bistine Maaonna, the, 80. 

Solfatc"-a, ^iie, 180. 

Sorrento, road to, 187 ; beauty of, 
188. 

South Kensington Museum, 48. 

Spurgeon, 20. 

Staubbach, the, 113. 

Stufa di Nerone, 182. 

Stufa di San Germano, 181. 

Swiss railways, 100; carriage 
roads, 100; inns, 102; mendi- 
cancy, 102; women overworked, 
103.' 

Tarpeian Rock, the, 240. 

Terni, Falls of, 282. 

Tete Noir, the, 125. 

Thames, the, 35; navigation of, 

36 ; bridges over, 36 ; tunnel, 

37. 
Thun, Lake of, 115. 
Tiber, the, 253. 
Tiberius, palace of, at Capri, 197. 



Tibur (now Tivoli), classical ref- 
erences to, 251. 

Titian's Tribute-money, 83; As- 
sumption of the Virgin, 84. 

Tivoli, Falls of, 249; temples at, 
250; villas in, 251. 

Tower of London, 38. 

Trajan's forum and column, 233. 

Trasteverini, the, 256. 

Vatican, the, gallery of sculpture 
in, 242, 264; Etruscan Museum 
in, 265; hall of maps in, 265; 
library, 266; manufactory of 
mosaics in, 266. 

Vesuvius, ascent of, 177; prospect 
from, 179. 

Virgilian sites near Naples, 183. 

Westminster Abbey, 40. 
Westminster Palace, 14. 
Wood-carving, one of the fine arts, 

9L 
Wordsworth, memorials of, 61. 












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